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COFi'RIGHT DEPOSIT. 



PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS 
THOUGHT 



PRIMARY FACTS IN 
RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 



SEVEN. ESSAYS DEALING IN A SIMPLE 

AND PRACTICAL MANNER WITH 

THE NATURE, EXPRESSIONS, 

AND RELATIONS OF 

RELIGION 



BY 



ALFRED WESLEY WISHART 

A' 
rORMBRLY FELLOW IN CHURCH HISTORY IN 
THB UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 

AUTHOR OF "monks AND MONASTERIES '* 



m 



CHICAGO 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 

I90S 



:6T^'^ erg- 






Copyright 1905 
By The University of Chicago 



PREFACE 

Religion is a theme of perennial interest. 
Everybody thinks and talks about it. The 
libraries are filled with books dealing with 
theological creeds and systems, ecclesiastical 
institutions, religious customs, forms of wor- 
ship, and sacred books. The subject engaged 
human thought in the infancy of the race, and 
it still maintains its place as the greatest of all 
the problems that perplex the mind of man. 

The aim of these short essays is to place 
within the reach of the people certain facts and 
principles which, it is believed, are absolutely 
essential to a proper understanding of the sub- 
ject. The author's rather varied experience 
convinces him that, notwithstanding the multi- 
tude of sermons, periodicals, and books upon 
religion, many people, including the well-read, 
have very vague and unsatisfactory opinions 
respecting religion and its relations to theology, 
morals, the church, the Bible, and Christ. 
Much of the distress of mind caused by the 
changes in theological thought would be 
averted if certain fundamental facts were more 



VI PREFACE 

generally known and their significance under- 
stood. 

Since the value of a book for general 
readers is increased by clear statement and 
candid treatment, the author has tried to pre- 
sent the message stripped of evasive terms and 
perplexing technicalities. What he thinks, he 
has endeavored to state with unmistakable 
clearness. 

It is hoped that the book will clarify the 
views and strengthen the faith of those who 
are confused and troubled by modern theo- 
logical thought and historical criticism. 

Alfred W. Wishart. 

Trenton, N. J., 
September 8, 1905. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter I. What is Religion? . . . i 

Chapter II. Religion and Theology . . 22 

Chapter III. Religion and Morals ... 39 

Chapter IV. Religion and the Church . . 51 

Chapter V. Religion and Social Progress . 71 

Chapter VI. Religion and Christ ... 87 

Chapter VII. Religion and the Bible . . 107 



Vll 



CHAPTER I 

WHAT IS RELIGION? 

There are unnumbered mysteries in this 
world, some of which exist in things them- 
selves, others are of man's creation. Skilful 
philosophers can spin metaphysical cobwebs 
around any subject. They sometimes invent 
problems which they themselves cannot solve. 
Is there a world outside ourselves correspond- 
ing to our ideas? Few persons can furnish 
proof of such a world that will be satisfactory 
to certain philosophers. Yet we conduct our- 
selves as if the world were real, and our as- 
sumption does not fail us. We build houses of 
brick and mortar without knowing what mat- 
ter is, or even if there is such a thing; and we 
live in them_, rear our children, and find com- 
fort and happiness. Are we free agents ? That 
is a nice question in philosophy not yet satis- 
factorily solved, and it may never be. Still we 
act as if we were free. We appeal to others 
to do thiSj or not to do that, just as if they 
really could do one thing or the other as they 
please. When we do wrong, we blame our- 



2 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

selves, assuming that we could have done right, 
if we had wished to do it. 

Our senses are not infallible, but, in the 
main, we trust them. Our convictions may be 
all false, but we act upon them. We ma}/ be 
all soul or all body, yet we talk and plan as if 
we had a material body and something not 
body, which we call the soul. 

Where these ideas, convictions, assump- 
tions, whatever we choose to call them, came 
from is a much-disputed question, troublesome 
only to a very few. The mass of men simply 
accept the fact that we have them. The mys- 
teries involved in every thought, emotion, or 
act of will do not stop the wheels of industry 
or throw the world of human life into confu- 
sion. For thousands of years mankind has 
assumed very many things to be real and true, 
and during these ages great progress has been 
made; yet the- question^ "What is reality?'' 
is as hotly debated as it ever was. We are no 
nearer the final solution of many mysteries 
than were those who first faced them in awe 
and wonder. 

Listen to John Fiske, one of the choice 
intellectual products of centuries of human 
development : 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 3 

When from the dawn of life we see all things 
working together toward the evolution of the highest 
spiritual attributes of man, we know, however the words 
may stumble in which we try to say it, that God is in the 
deepest sense a moral Being, The everlasting source 
of phenomena is none other than the infinite Power that 
makes for righteousness. Thou canst not by searching 
find him out ; yet put th}'- trust in him, and against thee 
the gates of hell shall not prevail; for there is neither 
wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the 
Eternal. 

Mr. Fiske informs us that this conclusion 
is the fruit of a wide induction from the most 
vitally important facts which the doctrine of 
evolution has set forth. But was his faith in 
God, so derived, any stronger than that of 
Jesus Christ, who never heard of evolution? 
What is still more important, are scientific 
arguments for the existence of God any more 
convincing for the millions than Christ's asser- 
tion, without proof, that God is our Father in 
heaven ? 

Let us be clearly understood. No discredit 
to science, which has been of great service to 
religion, is intended. The progress of knowl- 
edge has thrown light on the idea of God and 
other problems of religion. But, after all, may 
it not be true that mankind, including Mr. 



4 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

Fiske, believes in God, puts its trust in him, 
not because, by searching, it can find him out, 
but because man cannot help believing in God ? 
Man is, as Sabatier declares, " incurably reli- 
gious." Research and meditation may clarify 
and broaden the idea of God, but the fact is 
that man believes in some sort of a Higher 
Power as naturally and inevitably as he accepts 
the evidence of his senses and believes in a 
world outside himself. " Call him, then," says 
Seneca, "as thou pleasest, either Nature, or 
Fate, or Fortune, it makes no matter, because 
they are all names of the selfsame God, who 
diversely useth his divine providence." 

When one demands evidence for the exist- 
ence of God, he will find no more rest for his 
perplexed soul in the arguments of philosophers 
and scientists than in the fact, uncontroverted 
and indisputable, that man has always believed 
in him. 

We shall therefore assume, without discus- 
sion, that God is, and that he manifests him- 
self to man, immediately in man's soul, and 
indirectly through nature and history. Reli- 
gion which has its origin in this ultimate fact, 
is universal. Its varieties are innumerable, 
being scarcely the same in any two persons. It 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 5 

has marvelously changed in the course of time. 
Yet in its essential character, and as an actual, 
real phase of human experience, one might as 
well justify the ocean or the stars as justify 
religion. It needs no justification. It has al- 
ways been and now is a vast, complex, inde- 
structible fact. The underlying nature of this 
universal experience, however, and its manifold 
expressions or forms, may profitably be studied. 
The ideas, feelings, and conduct involved in 
religion may be investigated, and one set of 
experiences may be compared with another, for 
the purpose of facilitating religious progress 
and getting closer to reality and truth. That is 
the task to which we now address ourselves. 

What is religion ? A friend once remarked 
that a definition more often defines the definer 
than it does the thing defined. That is true. 
To define is to determine the limits of a thing, 
to fix the boundaries which distinguish it from 
other things. The definition is therefore the 
definer's conception of a thing, and the defini- 
tion will bear the earmarks of his limitations 
and particular point of view. When the object 
defined is complex, intricate, vague, and vast, 
points of view will be numerous and definitions 
will vary. So a definition of religion often 



6 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

excludes more than it includes. A fence al- 
ways shuts out more than it shuts in. Each 
philosopher and theologian has his own defini- 
tion, and he no sooner lays it down than he 
takes it up again to expand it to include many 
things he has left out. But this inability of the 
learned to agree on a subject of such vital con- 
cern to all mankind need disturb no one. It is 
to be expected. It is unavoidable. 

" Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies — 
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
Little flower — but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is." 

If one cannot understand a tiny flower, 
need one marvel at the diversity of opinion 
respecting religion? 

In order to convince the skeptic, the 
preacher argues that religion is universal and 
natural. Thus he seeks to justify faith in God 
as a rational experience. On the other hand, 
when he appeals to the sinner to turn from 
the error of his ways, the preacher is quite 
likely to divide men into two classes, the reli- 
gious and the irreligious. This inconsistency 
arises because the word "religion" is used in 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 7 

two senses; the subject is considered from two 
different points of view. In the first instance, 
the mind dwells upon that fundamental and 
universal element in human experience which 
characterizes man as religious. In the second, 
a distinction is made, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, between religion and religions. A 
particular type of religion is used as a standard 
by which to judge men. If they come up to 
that standard, they are called religious. If 
they fall short, they are classed as irreligious. 
"Man as man is a religious being," says 
William N. Clarke. "Conceivably, religion 
may be simply a reaching forth on the part of 
man; for by an inward necessity man does 
reach forth to the realities with which religion 
is concerned, whether he has definite knowledge 
of God or not." This is undoubtedly the fun- 
damental fact about religion. Our thinking on 
this subject must begin with the fact that reli- 
gion, in the broad, general sense, is a man's 
life or experience viewed in its relation to God 
— to the God who dwells in all things. 

"Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? 
Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? 
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there ! 
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, thou art there ! 



8 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

If I take the wings of the morning 
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 
Even there shall thy hand lead me, 
And thy right hand shall hold me." 

Right here a real difficulty arises. Some 
believe there is no God, no Spirit binding all 
things into one complete whole. Instead of 
God, there is only the order of nature. Man's 
duty, it is said, is to reverence this order, to 
obey nature's laws; but whether we stand in 
the presence of an infinite and eternal God or 
not, cannot be determined. All we can do is 
to worship and to obey the laws of nature. 
Others substitute humanity for God, and find 
in enthusiasm for humanity, and in love and 
reverence for the best men, an equivalent for 
the worship and love of God. Now, since 
these nature-worshipers and humanity-wor- 
shipers do not recognize any divine life, related 
to nature and to man, can they be called reli- 
gious ? Have they any religion ? The answer 
to this question depends entirely upon the point 
of view, the definition of " religion " which one 
adopts. For example, if we understand by 
" religion," what Martineau declared it to be, 
"belief in an ever-living God, that is, a divine 
Mind and Will ruling the universe and holding 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 9 

moral relations with mankind," then the 
nature-worshiper has no religion. Martineau 
objects to ''watering down" the meaning of 
" religion " so as to include those who are not 
conscious of '' the abiding presence and per- 
suasion of the Soul of Souls." He does this in 
the interests of what he conceives to be clear 
thinking and true religion. Nevertheless, he 
sees in the ideals and characters of these lovers 
of nature and servants of humanity, in their 
desire to harmonize knowledge and religion, 
in their manly struggle to reach the light and 
the truth, an " inspiration akin to that of 
genuine piety." Therefore, as if his heart 
revolted at shutting the doors of the temple of 
religion in the face of such valiant and sincere 
advocates of what they believe to be truth, 
Martineau says : " Their functions are sacred, 
because concerned with a universe already con- 
secrated by a divine presence, gleaming through 
all its order and loveliness." So he opens the 
doors and lets them in — with a distinct under- 
standing, however : " You may come in ; but 
if we give you a home in the widened category 
of religion, it must be as children of the house, 
and not as wielding its supreme authority. 
You men of science and true artists are rightly 



lO PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

called 'ministering priests of nature,' but this 
you could not be, ' unless nature were a temple 
filled with God.' " 

Religion, then, may be considered as im- 
possible without a conscious fellowship with 
God, a conscious recognition of God as the 
Spirit that lies back of all nature and speaks to 
us through nature. In that case, a savage who 
believes that the things he sees were made by 
a spirit or spirits he does not see, would be 
religious; while the scientist, whatever his 
knowledge and moral character, who does not 
believe in God, would not have any religion. 

But suppose we deal with what we have 
assumed to be a fact, irrespective of the knowl- 
edge or consciousness of that fact. Suppose 
man is related to God, whether he knows and 
feels it or not; that the laws of the moral and 
physical world are God's laws; that every fact 
of nature tells us something about God, and 
that, when we deal with these laws of nature 
and obey them, we deal with and obey God; 
that all moral ideals proceed from God, so we 
cannot try to realize any moral ideal without 
trying in some degree to do what God wants 
us to dOj whether we know it to be God's will 
or not. Then a man's religion is his attitude 



WHAT IS RELIGION? II 

toward all things — toward God, nature, hu- 
manity. What he thinks, feels, and wills is his 
religion, because, from the very nature of the 
case, in view of the supposition taken, a man 
cannot think, feel, and act without displaying 
his attitude toward God. The failure to grasp 
the real significance of his life, to see himself 
as related to a Divine Being, does not alter the 
fact that he is related to this Divine Being, any 
more than ignorance or unconsciousness of the 
action of foods in the stomach proves that no 
chemical action takes place. 

So when we think of religion as universal, 
as instinctive, as the experience of man in rela- 
tion to a divine life, we do not inquire whether 
the individual thinks and feels and acts accord- 
ing to some fixed standard ; not what he ought 
to be and to do, but what is his actual attitude 
toward the universe. Whatever that is, that is 
his religion. 

This is viewing religion as the actual, con- 
crete experience of the individual soul, assum- 
ing all the while that this soul is, whether it 
knows the fact or not, dependent upon an infin- 
ite God holding relations with that soul — rela- 
tions from which he cannot escape, even if he 
would. 



12 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

But there is another and very important 
way to consider this subject. The moment we 
set up a standard by which to judge the quan- 
tity or quaHty of a man's reHgion, we are 
forced to make a distinction between reHgion 
and rehgions. When we speak of conscious 
and unconscious reHgion, or revealed and 
natural religion, or the religion of love, the 
religion of creeds, the religion of conduct, or 
the Christian religion, the Buddhist or Mo- 
hammedan religion, we at once adopt a test 
and classify each individual in some group or 
type. 

Judging by some fixed criterion, we speak 
of true and false religion, of persecuting reli- 
gion, of ceremonial or creedal religion, of 
theoretical and practical reHgion, of individual 
and social religion. Clearly all these are par- 
ticular expressions or manifestations of the 
universal religious life. We may take any one 
of these religions and identify it with religion 
itself. Then everything that departs from this 
ideal will be no-religion. How common is it 
for people to say of some persecuting religion : 
"If that is religion, I don't want any of it!'* 
Here there is evidently in mind some standard 
of what man ought to be before he is worthy 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 1 3 

to be called religious. Yet in the last analysis 
the deeds of the persecutor are emphatically an 
expression of his religious life. They indicate 
his religious attitude toward God and man. So 
we may think of religion as synonymous with 
goodness, whatever that may be. All who are 
not as good as we think they ought to be we 
may class with the irreligious. But are all reli- 
gious people good ? They may be in the savage 
state. They may love that which is bad and act 
wickedly. Still they certainly have a religious 
life. Whatever that life is, we repeat then, is 
their religion. But if they must attain a high 
stage of development in knowledge, feeling, and 
conduct before they are religious, then they are 
not religious. If the standard is lofty, there 
are comparatively few who are religious. The 
vast majority of people are, then, without any 
religion at all. 

There is, lastly, a third way to regard 
religion. 

We may think of religion, not as the actual 
and total experience of man, and not as that 
experience judged by certain standards; but 
we may analyze that experience and find in it 
certain elements which are often called the 
essence of religion, the germs from which the 



14 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

highest forms of religion grow; "the soul of 
good in things evil," as it were. 

In every creature, simply because he is 
made in the image of God, will be found some- 
thing good, even though it be the faintest 
traces. No rational creature, however de- 
praved, is absolutely destitute of every germ of 
goodness. To be such a man one must be abso- 
lutely without any knowledge of God. That 
means that he does not know, in whole or in 
part, a single truth or fact in God's world. He 
has never been the possessor of a worthy affec- 
tion — never loved anything good, even in the 
faintest degree. He has never performed an 
act that had even the element of right in it. 
Such a creature is really unthinkable. We be- 
hold in all men, however degraded, some striv- 
ing to realize something good, some ideal that 
has elements of nobility in it. Blindly, though 
it may be, this human being is groping after 
God. The Divine is struggling with a human 
soul, seeking its salvation. The voice of con- 
science, craving for immortality, consciousness 
of sin, love of children, desire to serve a friend, 
sympathy with the unfortunate, grief over the 
dead — these are some of the germs of the 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 1 5 

religious life, the elemental manifestations of 

the life of God in the soul of man. 

" God is in all that liberates and lifts, 
In all that humbles, sweetens, and consoles." 

The individual exhibits these traits of 
goodness and truth just because he is a soul, 
made in the image of God ; because God dwells 
in every heart. So in this sense, too, religion 
is "writ deep" in human nature. It is con- 
stitutional. Man cannot escape from it. He is 
" incurably religious." 

Now, it would be comparatively easy to 
understand this view of the matter, and to con- 
fess it to be true, were it not for the fact that 
we have been brought up to think of some type 
or kind of religion as constituting all the reli- 
gion there is in this world. Then, too, we 
have other preconceived ideas, which lead us at 
once to ask : " Will everybody, then, be saved ? 
If all men are religious, what is the use of send- 
ing missionaries to the heathen?" 

The destiny of man after death is easily 
distinguished from the state of his religious 
experience in this world. If only those who 
are going to heaven, according to the belief of 
many Christians, are religious, then vast multi- 
tudes have no religion at all. Religion ceases 



1 6 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

to be universal, and becomes the achievement 
of a small fragment of humanity. Under this 
view, the non-Christian nations, with their 
sacred books, altars and temples and theologies, 
have no religion. No intelligent person would 
go so far as that, because, if no one is religious 
except those who are called Christians, it might 
be difficult to prove that the Christian religion 
is any more entitled to be called a religion than 
any other. If it is claimed that all faiths except 
Christianity are false, it would be quite easy 
to prove that to be false also. " Salvation," 
then, is a term used to describe the state of 
those who have reached a certain stage in reli- 
gious development or complied with certain 
requirements. But religion itself is not identi- 
cal with " my " religion, or with certain stand- 
ards of faith and practice. It is not at all 
necessary to assume that, because every man is 
religious, he is therefore what he might be or 
ought to be. He may be a very undesirable 
member of society. He may have a long way 
to travel in order to reach certain religious 
standards. No truth of Christianity, no true 
incentive to missionary effort, is in the least 
degree weakened by this broad conception of 
universal religion. 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 1 7 

When Paul addressed the Athenians on 
Mars' Hill, he took substantially this view of 
religion. He conceded that the Athenians were 
*' somewhat religious," even though they had 
erected an altar to "the Unknown God.'' Even 
their agnosticism was their religion. " But," 
said he, *' what therefore ye worship in ignor- 
ance, this I set forth unto you." 

It is in this universal groping after God 
amid the clouds of mystery that enshroud us, 
in this divine life struggling for recognition in 
the consciousness of man, that we find the cre- 
ative force which has produced every phase of 
the religious life ; and it is this which furnishes 
an unanswerable argument for the permanence, 
indestructibility, and reasonableness of univer- 
sal religion. 

The baby's consciousness of the world into 
which it is born has been described as "one 
big, blooming, buzzing confusion." That is 
what the religious life was at the beginning of 
man's long march toward the Infinite ; to a cer- 
tain extent, that is what this universe is to all 
of us even now. We see through a glass, 
darkly. Some see more clearly than others. 
But the ground of our hope is that underneath 
are the everlasting arms ; that the soul of man 



1 8 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

craves harmony with its environment, peace 
and rest in the shadow of the Eternal. Were 
it otherwise, we might confidently await the 
end of all religion. But, such being the case, 
religion cannot perish. It may change and 
grow, but it will not, cannot, die. 

It may serve to illustrate the point of view 
taken, and to render the conviction of its cor- 
rectness more certain in the minds of the 
doubting, to consider briefly the subject of art. 

Tolstoi says that, in spite of the mountains 
of books written on art, no accurate definition 
of " art " has yet been reached. The reason for 
this, he explains, is that some idea or standard 
of beauty constitutes the basis of all .definitions. 

Shall we say, with Mill, that art is the em- 
ployment of the powers of nature for an end? 
In that case everybody is an artist. The sav- 
age who makes a flint ax, or decorates his face 
with paint, or constructs a rude shelter, em- 
ploys the powers of nature for an end. Every- 
body does that. 

Or shall we confine art to that only which 
reaches a given standard of beauty or excel- 
lence? When an artist, criticising a picture, 
says, "That is not art," what does he mean? 
Plainly this, that the picture does not conform 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I9 

to certain artistic standards which the critic has 
adopted. What some call art he denies to be 
art. Is everybody, then, an artist? Or are 
those artists only who are professionally 
skilled, who have reached a certain stage of 
development in knowledge, taste, and skill? 

But there is still another standard. Wil- 
liam Morris says: "That which I understand 
by real art is the expression by man of his 
pleasure in labor." Is joy in one's work the 
test, so that all who have no joy in their work 
are not artists ? Is the product itself not to be 
considered? If the worker experienced joy in 
his work, is the result of his labor to be called 
an artistic product, no matter what its aesthetic 
character may be? 

Here then, as in the case of religion, it is 
plainly to be seen that everything depends on 
the point of view. If conformity to certain 
standards be art, then some are artists and 
some are not. But if man's inborn craving to 
express himself, and the germs of the taste for 
the beautiful, be considered as the essential 
element in art, then everybody is an artist, the 
difference between the untrained and the pro- 
fessional being merely one of degree. 

Art may be regarded as subjective, as a 



20 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

phase of human experience. It may be con- 
sidered as objective, consisting of the products 
of that experience. 

To conclude, then : ** Religion " may be 
taken to mean man's actual inner life, viewed 
in its relationship to God, in which experience, 
thoughts, feelings, and will are indissolubly 
united. 

Or the term may be confined to the body of 
doctrines or mythologies, sacred books, institu- 
tions, ceremonies, conduct, and other visible 
manifestations or expressions of the inner reli- 
gious experience. 

These two uses of the word "religion," 
however, really apply to one and the same 
thing ; for the visible is but the outcome of the 
invisible, two parts of one experience, just as 
the personality is expressed in the deed. We 
can get at the deed through the personality, or 
at the personality through the deed. Each 
helps to tell us what the other is. The doc- 
trines, sacred books, rituals, and creeds assist 
us in determining the inner side of the religious 
experiencCj and the thoughts, feelings, and will 
determine what the external religion will be. 

A third use of the word " religion '' appears 
when we adopt a standard. If one must have 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 21 

certain ideas about God, or certain feelings of 
dependence upon him, or if he must have 
reached a definite stage of goodness, then reH- 
gion ceases to be a man's actual attitude toward 
God, whatever that attitude may be, and no 
matter what the degree of his consciousness of 
God may be. According to this view, only 
those are religious who reach the standard; 
the others have no religion. 



CHAPTER II 

RELIGION AND THEOLOGY 

The failure to understand the relations be- 
tween theology and religion is a fruitful source 
of unhappiness. Many persons are not taught 
to see any difference between theology and reli- 
gion, and consequently, when they lose faith 
in one or more doctrines about religion, they 
often feel that they have lost their religion. 
Others are afraid of being classed with the 
irreligious or skeptical, and employ all sorts of 
ingenious devices to satisfy conscience and at 
the same time avoid an open rupture with their 
family or friends. They try to make them- 
selves believe that the words they formerly 
understood to mean one thing can stand just 
as well for a very different thing. Some drift 
insensibly into the habit of pretending to be- 
lieve what they really do not believe. Others 
become indifferent to doctrines of religion, and 
imagine that it makes no difference what one 
believes, if one is only sincere. In one way or 
another a rather cold and formal allegiance to 
the church and a lifeless sort of religion result 

22 



RELIGION AND THEOLOGY 23 

from a misunderstanding of the true value and 
function of theology. It is, therefore, a sad 
fact, well known to students of history, that 
crises in theology have always been accom- 
panied by irreverence and religious indifference 
in the experience of many persons driven into 
confusion and despair by theological changes. 
Brought up to believe that religion and certain 
doctrines are one and the same thing, when 
they cease to believe these doctrines or become 
skeptical respecting them, they cannot escape 
the conviction that they have lost their religion. 
It is, then, highly important to consider care- 
fully the nature and function of theology. This 
does not require us to pass judgment upon 
conflicting systems of theology. Our inquiry 
is not, "Which is the true theology?" but, 
" What is theology itself? " 

Everything entering into the experience of 
man may be explored, investigated, studied. 
When we study crystals, plants, animals, we 
really observe, compare, recall, and analyze our 
impressions and perceptions of these objects. 
Science is, strictly speaking, knowledge of 
reality as it comes in contact with the experi- 
ence of man. Everybody, even an untutored 
barbarian, has some knowledge of reality. 



24 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

although we do not speak of this vague, un- 
certain knowledge of things as science. So the 
meaning of the word is restricted to a devel- 
oped form of primitive ideas. Sometimes 
science is described as ''organized or system- 
atized knowledge," or ''the highest stage of 
growing knowledge." No clear line has been 
drawn between the indefinite knowledge of the 
uneducated and the more adequate knowledge 
of those who call themselves scientists. Some 
say that science does not exist until the idea 
arises of law binding facts together. " Science, 
therefore, consists not in the accumulation of 
heterogeneous facts, any more than the random 
up-piling of stones is architecture." 

The word " science " must not be restricted 
to the study of physical things, because, as a 
matter of fact, when we study physical things, 
we at the same time examine these things as 
they appear to the soul. It is just as legitimate 
to study the idea of duty, the love of God, the 
feeling of reverence, the soul's craving for 
righteousness, as it is to study our impressions 
of flowers, birds, or stones. Science deals with 
other things than those that can be seen and 
handled. Science deals with unseen realities 
as well as with the things that do appear. The 



RELIGION AND THEOLOGY 25 

so-called scientific laws are not laws that can 
be seen. 

Since some things are more involved, 
the sciences differ in the range of ascertained 
and established truths. It is easier for scien- 
tists to agree in some fields than in others. For 
example, botany, or the science of plants, is 
more exact than psychology, or the science of 
the human soul. But this does not prove that 
cabbages are more real than souls. 

Now, religion, as human experience, is 
made up of ideas about God, nature, and man, 
involving feelings of love, reverence, duty, all 
of which exert a profound influence upon man's 
character and conduct. Theology is the science 
of this whole religious experience. Religion is 
the fact, the object, the reality, whatever you 
wish to call it; and theology is the organized 
body of knowledge concerning this reality. 

There are those who refuse to call theology 
a science, because the Infinite and the Unknown 
enter so largely into the experience which is 
studied. It is assumed that exact knowledge 
is possible when dealing with the facts of na- 
ture, but nothing more than theory is possible 
when dealing with fundamental and ultimate 
reality, the all-pervading mystery of the uni- 



26 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

verse. So all theologies, it is said, must ever 
be imperfect systems of thought, defective in- 
terpretations of the relations existing between 
man and God. 

But, rightly viewed, is not the difference 
between theological knowledge and all other 
scientific knowledge merely one of degrees? 
All knowledge, of every sort, is partial. What 
science or philosophy goes to the roots of things 
and tells us the whole truth about life and 
force and ultimate reality? What science is 
without its theories, assumptions, hypotheses, 
guesses? What science does not encounter 
obstacles and barriers to its investigations? 
What scientific classification satisfies all minds ? 

True, it is not so easy to reach satisfactory 
conclusions in theology as it is in the physical 
sciences; but it is very far from true that the 
difference between theology and physical sci- 
ence is that the former gives us guesses and 
theories, while the latter gives us facts and 
exact knowledge. The mystery, perplexity, 
and uncertainty are not all on one side. 

The first and most important thing to re- 
member, then, is that there is clearly a differ- 
ence between religion, which is the experience 
of man in all his relations with the Infinite, and 



RELIGION AND THEOLOGY 2^ 

theology, which deals with these varied and 
complex facts, whatever they are. A similar 
line is drawn between plant life and botany, 
the starry heavens and astronomy, animal life 
and zoology, the earth and geology. We know 
that in all these sciences what is declared to be 
true about things may be true or may be false, 
and all that is true is only true so far as it goes ; 
it is not the whole truth. 

All these sciences have a history. When 
Socrates sees how absurd are the answers to 
his questions, he exclaims : " How disappoint- 
ing ! How vexatious ! We are where we were ! 
We must begin again. We have not yet found 
what we are seeking. We have not yet got 
hold of the real and essential truth." To get 
hold of real truth, to know ourselves and the 
outward world — this has ever been the eager 
desire of mankind. But how slowly and 
wearily has mankind reached its present im- 
perfect conception of things! What crudities, 
superstitions, and absurdities once passed for 
knowledge ! How frequently have the theories 
of men been revolutionized by new discoveries ! 
And, even in our time of boasted enlighten- 
ment, how quickly do scientific treatises be- 
come obsolete and useless ! Books on the con- 



28 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

flict between science and theology do more 

than show the hostihty of some theologians to 

scientific investigations and conclusions. They 

also disclose the fact that the history of every 

science is a record of human ignorance and 

superstition — reverence for conclusions utterly 

without foundation. So it is true, not only of 

theology, but of all the sciences : 

" Our little systems have their day, 
They have their day and cease to be, 
They are but broken lights of Thee, 
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they." 

But it will be said that science has made 
great progress in recent years. True, indeed, 
and so has theology. We are in the midst of a 
momentous revolution of thought respecting 
the religious experience. Systems of theology 
are undergoing thorough and radical recon- 
struction. Whether theological knowledge has 
kept pace with other knowledge is a matter of 
some consequence, but the really vital question 
is whether theology is advancing at all. It 
must be evident to every well-informed student 
of theology that there is slowly emerging out 
of the chaos a number of epoch-making doc- 
trines. We are now, and shall always be, far 
from absolute truth. But some things are 



RELIGION AND THEOLOGY 2g 

becoming clearer. The vital elements of reli- 
gion are more definitely perceived, and the 
fundamentals are being emphasized now as 
never before. 

There are several important divisions in 
theology which it is well to describe very 
briefly. The foundation of theology in gen- 
eral, the subject-matter of the science, is God 
in his various manifestations or relations. 

When attention is fixed upon God in rela- 
tion to nature, we have what has been called 
*' physical theology." Here the object is to 
deal with God as the First Cause of all things, 
and to study the visible world for the light it 
may throw on the nature and purposes of God. 
Martineau says : " If you wish to remain an 
agnostic or an atheist, you must never look 
beyond appearances or inquire as to causes. If 
you do, you cannot stop short of God." 

When we study God in his relation to the 
essential nature of man, we have "metaphysi- 
cal theology." Here the effort is to arrive at 
some knowledge and understanding of God by 
a study of the personality of man. 

Then there are other classifications based 
upon the different religious experiences of the 
race. Each particular religion has its theology. 



30 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

Christian theology deals with that religious 
experience which has its center in Christ. It 
studies the religion described in the Bible, and 
the religion which sprang from the religion 
whose record is in the Bible. 

We may divide the religious experience of 
Christians into various elements, and fix atten- 
tion, for example, upon the dogmas of the 
Christian religion, which constitute "dogmatic 
theology." " Historical theology " traces the 
development of the doctrines of the Christian 
religion. 

If we think of the doctrines of Christianity 
as a revelation, and the religious life associated 
with these doctrines as revealed religion, then 
theology may be divided into "revealed the- 
ology" and "natural theology," which latter 
deals with the religious life outside of revealed 
religion. 

All these divisions and subdivisions of the- 
ology are simply parts of the universal think- 
ing of men about a universal experience. They 
are made for practical purposes, in order to 
limit a vast subject within such bounds that it 
can be more easily handled. Each department 
or branch of the general subject is simply a 
partial view of the whole. 



RELIGION AND THEOLOGY 3 1 

Passing now from these more general ob- 
servations, let us point out a few actualities in 
the religious experience with which theology 
deals, which are as truly facts as any physical 
reality with which science has to do. 

First, the belief in God. Whether there is 
a Divine Being or not, it cannot be denied that 
man has cherished the belief in his existence. 
The origin and growth of the idea of God is a 
matter of interesting history and philosophy. 
The varieties of this belief no more prove the 
nonexistence of God than the disagreements 
of scientists disprove the reality of the outward 
world. 

Moreover, the influence of the idea of God 
upon human character, as a force in civiliza- 
tion, cannot be ignored. It is difficult to de- 
scribe that influence and to distinguish its 
operation from those of other civilizing forces ; 
but the fact remains that the belief in God 
exists, and that it has profoundly affected man- 
kind. 

A second fact or element of the religious 
experience with which theology is concerned 
is the consciousness of sin. Self-condemnation, 
attended by distress of mind and heart, and 
discontent with one's moral condition, are 
actual experiences, as real as any that man has 



32 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

Thirdly, there is also to be found in the 
experience of man the desire for righteousness, 
for forgiveness of sins and peace with the 
Divine Being. This longing for God may be 
described in language that applies only to a 
developed form of the religious experience, but 
the fact is that there is a universal hunger for 
spiritual peace which, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, is always at work. 

We may go a step farther without leaving 
the solid ground of reality. While there is the 
greatest diversity of opinion respecting the 
nature of ultimate goodness, there is a univer- 
sal recognition of good and bad. Even a sav- 
age responds to kindness, and feels that there 
is a difference between a brutal, blood-thirsty 
villain and a tender-hearted missionary. The 
loving character is, to say the least, generally 
preferred to the cruel one. There is a common 
understanding that certain types of character 
and certain kinds of deeds are worthy of ad- 
miration, while others merit condemnation. 

In these four facts — the belief in God, the 
consciousness of sin, the longing for forgive- 
ness, and the attachment to some ideal of char- 
acter — will be found the constituent elements 
of the universal religious experience. In deal- 



RELIGION AND THEOLOGY 33 

ing with these fundamental reaHties, theology 
does not beat the air or walk with uncertain 
tread. Here, truly, there is something to be 
investigated in a scientific spirit, and about 
which exact knowledge, comparatively speak- 
ing, is obtainable. 

Finally, another relationship between reli- 
gion and theology deserves attention. Is reli- 
gion the fruit of theology? The influence of 
Christ's teachings upon the religious life will 
be discussed in a later chapter; so the effect 
of theological doctrines on religion will here 
be viewed in its broadest aspect. 

Theology did not create religion, any more 
than astronomy created the stars. So theology 
is subordinate to religion, doctrine to life. 

Scientific knowledge has some bearing on 
life, and tends to promote the well-being of 
mankind. Mistaken views of nature may do 
great harm. For example, astrology and false 
medical theories had a serious effect upon 
morals and physical life. Ignorance always 
injures man. 

This is particularly true in the case of the- 
ology, because this science is more vitally and 
intimately related to the welfare of mankind. 
The mind is one of the chief factors in the 



34 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

religious development of the race. What a 
man thinks about God and duty has much to do 
with his religious life. Our ideas, whether we 
gained them by instruction or by personal in- 
quiry and meditation, react upon the whole 
life. Consequently, the doctrines of any sys- 
tem of theology exert a powerful influence 
upon individuals and upon society. It is there- 
fore folly to say that it makes no difference 
what we believe so long as we are sincere. 

But there is a vast difference between doc- 
trines in their relation to the practical life. 
Some theological doctrines have less contact 
with life than others; that is, they are more 
speculative and purely philosophical, dealing 
with subjects out of the common reach, more 
or less remote from the capacity of the average 
intellect. So, while religion is affected by in- 
tellectual conceptions, it is not correct to say 
that religion is entirely dependent upon theo- 
logical knowledge, because the religious experi- 
ence is made up of what we love and what we 
will to do, as well as of what we think. 

Many successful farmers know little of the 
science of agriculture. They are not entirely 
ignorant of soils and seeds, else they could not 
be successful; but their knowledge is not of a 



RELIGION AND THEOLOGY 35 

scientific character. One might know all about 
the chemistry of foods and be a confirmed dys- 
peptic, unable to experience the health and 
pleasure derived from food. To enjoy a beau- 
tiful landscape, to delight in mountains, green 
fields, brooks, and flowers, it is not at all indis- 
pensable to study geolog}' and botany scientifi- 
cally. One might be expert in the scientific 
knowledge of mountains without a tithe of the 
joy which an ignorant mountaineer experiences 
who lives among and loves the Alps. 

There is a great difference between nature 
as it is cut into pieces, dried, labeled, and 
tucked away in a museum of natural history, 
and nature as it glows with beauty and throbs 
with life out of doors. 

So, without ignoring the real value of scien- 
tific study, and the increased interest, pleasure, 
and advantage which it may impart to life, it is 
undoubtedly true that the religious life may 
flourish even where there is much ignorance of 
the philosophy of the religious experience, and 
little knowledge of the doctrines of religion. 
The test of mother-love is not knowledge of the 
psycholog}' of love. The test of health is not 
knowledge of physiology-. The test of virtue 
is not knowledge of ethics. So the test of reli- 



36 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

gion is not knowledge of theology. One may- 
love God supremely, devote his whole life to 
the service of God, and exhibit to his fellow- 
men a spirit of sympathy, sociability, kindness, 
and purity which will render him highly es- 
teemed by all who know him; yet his intel- 
lectual capacity may be of an inferior order, 
and his knowledge of theology may be very 
slight. " Our young people," says Emerson, 
"are diseased with the theological problems of 
original sin, origin of evil, predestination, and 
the like. These never presented a practical 
difficulty to any man — never darkened across 
any man's road, who did not go out of his way 
to seek them. These are the soul's mumps, 
and measles, and whooping cough." 

There is, in other words, a distinction to be 
drawn between philosophical or scientific reli- 
gious knowledge, and that kind of religious 
knowledge which is acquired by the complete 
surrender of the whole personality to God. 
This is because religion is more than knowl- 
edge. An expert theologian is not necessarily 
a truly religious man, while an uneducated 
man may be a noble example of religion. This 
does not place a premium on ignorance. It 
does not conflict with the fact that, all other 



RELIGION AND THEOLOGY ^^J 

things being equal, he who knows most about 
God, will reach the highest altitudes of charac- 
ter and usefulness. It merely argues that the 
essential knowledge required, that without 
which no moral excellence can be achieved, is 
not of a technical, but of a practical kind. To 
know the truth most worth knowing about 
God, one must enter into conscious fellowship 
with him and strive to obey him. Without 
suffering any deterioration in the religious life, 
one may remain ignorant of the arguments for 
the existence of God. One will not be any less 
a beautiful exponent of Christianity because he 
cannot or does not understand the doctrine of 
election, or the infallible inspiration of the 
Scriptures, or the Trinity. But what a man is 
doing with the life and the commands of Christ 
has much to do with the character of his reli- 
gion. Our happiness, welfare, and usefulness, 
then, do not depend primarily upon the range 
of our theological knowledge, but upon our 
attitude toward those principles and facts that 
are related specifically and vitally to our daily 
life. The religious life is not nurtured and 
developed by merely intellectual processes. 
The fundamental truths of religion must be 
experienced to prove of any value to the soul. 



38 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

What we love and what we will to do are 
vastly more important questions for us than 
what we know about theology as a system of 
knowledge concerning religion. 

Therefore no one should cease seeking fel- 
lowship with God because theologies change 
and pass away, any more than he would cease 
to seek his health and to delight in his strength 
because of the changes in medical science. 

Paul suggests the proper relationship in the 
religious life between knowledge and love 
when he says : 

Whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away. 
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when 
that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall 
be done away. 

Now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the 
greatest of these is love. 



CHAPTER III 

RELIGION AND MORALITY 

In the popular mind there is much confu- 
sion respecting the relations between religion 
and morals. Many church members think that 
religious people are those who are going to 
heaven, while the irreligious people are those 
who are eternally lost. In order to go to 
heaven, so they say, certain doctrines must be 
accepted; and multitudes would add another 
condition, namely, church membership. So it 
has come to pass that those who do not fulfil 
these requirements are thought to be without 
any religion. These opinions, honestly held, 
are often severely tested, and sometimes aban- 
doned in particular instances, as every minister 
can testify. Mothers have unbelieving sons, 
wives have unbelieving husbands, who are 
shining examples of genuine morality. They 
are honest in business, good citizens, agreeable 
neighbors, charitable to the poor, chaste in 
their habits, loving and kind in their homes. 
Realizing how superior in moral character 
such men are to many church members, loving 

39 



40 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

them as their own kin, these mothers and 
wives will tell you, in earnest and sincere tones, 
that if anyone is going to heaven, these sons 
and husbands will be found there. Their 
theories cannot stand before love, and before 
the consciousness that, somehow or other, these 
good men ou^ht to be saved, even if they are 
not religious. 

In what respect morality is related to reli- 
gion is, therefore, more than an interesting 
speculative problem. It is one of great prac- 
tical significance. Can one be good without 
being religious ? If the good man is religious, 
what do those popularly classed as moral men 
lack which those classed as religious possess? 
These are the two questions to which we shall 
attempt an answer. 

I . Can we be good without being religious ? 

Let us be clear as to what we mean by 
**good." Moral philosophers distinguish be- 
tween "right" and "good." Right conduct, 
they say, is conformity to some rule. These 
rules, however, must be directed toward some 
useful end. They do not agree what that end is ; 
but for convenience sake we will call that end 
the Supreme or Highest Good. Conduct directed 
toward this Supreme Good, whatever that may 



RELIGION AND MORALITY 4I 

be, is good conduct. But what the individual 
does, that he is. He who does right is good, 
because he cannot be truly said to do right un- 
less his motive is right. Of course, libraries 
have been written on this subject, and it is 
impossible for us to do more than state the case 
as simply as possible. 

The chief trait, then, in the moral man, 
that which distinguishes him from those re- 
garded as bad or immoral men, is this : The 
moral man tries to do his duty from right 
motives, and his fidelity to his obligations is 
adorned by the attractive graces of unselfish- 
ness, sociability, and kindness. If the moral 
man gave to the poor to get votes ; if he were 
chaste only because he feared indulgence of 
passion might injure his business by ruining 
his reputation ; if his motive was bad, we could 
not call him a good man, in the common ac- 
ceptation of the word. It may be said that 
there are men who are outwardly good for 
selfish ends. That may be true; but people 
cease to regard them as good when they are 
found out. They are respected and trusted 
by their fellowmen only when they are believed 
to be good at heart as well as good in deed. 

This must be the type of characters for us 



42 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

to consider. It would be self-contradictory 
to base a discussion upon a character out- 
wardly good, but inwardly bad, assuming that 
such a thing could be. 

We must also remember that when it is 
said a man is good, the word "good" is used 
in a relative, and not in an absolute, sense. If 
he were absolutely good, he would be perfectly 
religious. Then there would be no problem; 
for morality and religion would be two names 
for the same thing. 

The difficulty arises when the moral man is 
supposed to be without belief in God, and hence 
without any religion. The word "religion" 
we now use, not in its broadest significance, 
but as involving some special form of belief in 
God. 

If there are two kinds of goodness, a reli- 
gious and a moral kind, then the merely good 
man is not religious at all. But are there two 
kinds? Are there two ways to tell the truth, 
to resist a temptation, to pay one's debts, to 
vote fearlessly and conscientiously, to befriend 
the needy, to love one's wife and children ? In 
so far as a man does right, does he not obey 
God? In so far as he is good, is he not what 
God wants him to be ? The truth he recognizes 



RELIGION AND MORALITY 43 

and accepts as a principle of conduct, is this 
not God's truth? The moral laws he tries to 
obey, are they not God's laws? Is not his love 
for the moral ideal, and his subordination of 
his lower self to reach this ideal — is not this a 
leading feature in the highest religion? The 
struggle to do right is, whether one knows it 
or not, the response of the soul to the claims of 
God, to the voice of God, But it is said that 
this moral man has no consciousness of God. 
Is that quite true ? Would it not be nearer the 
truth to say that he is only partially or dimly 
conscious of God? In other words, the differ- 
ence between this man and a truly religious 
character is not that one has no religion and 
the other has, but that one is undeveloped and 
the other is developed, or one has little religion 
and the other much; because, as a matter of 
fact, the moral man is partly conscious of God, 
w^hen he is conscious of vital moral principles 
and certain high ideals, which are grounded in 
the Divine Being, 

Compare the moral man with a witch- 
doctor in a savage tribe — a brutal, ignorant 
slave to vices of the worst sort, grossly super- 
stitious. Yet he acts as a priest of religion, 
dealing in incantations to ward off evil spirits. 



44 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

He is religious; but his attitude toward God 
is that of bhnd terror, inspired by the mys- 
terious forces of nature, which he does not 
understand. He is a savage ; and that tells the 
whole story. 

The moral man may not believe in a per- 
sonal God; or he may be an agnostic, and 
declare that he does not know. He may have 
reached this conclusion after honest search ; or 
he may have become indifferent to what he has 
been taught to believe is religion, from one or 
more of a variety of causes. Theological 
changes may have confused him; unfortunate 
experiences with professors of religion may 
have repelled him from the church. Yet the 
underlying purpose of his whole nature may 
be one of exalted and unselfish ambition to live 
nobly and usefully, to make the best possible 
use of his powers for humanity's sake. If the 
moral law is grounded in the nature of the 
eternal God; if truth and love and goodness 
center in him, does not this moral man have 
some consciousness of the things of God, even 
though he cannot yet exclaim : *' My Father, 
who art in heaven " ? 

Can we affirm, without an irrepressible 
feeling that there is an error somewhere, that 



RELIGION AND MORALITY 45 

the savage is religious and the moral man has 
no religion ? 

The inability to pass a fair judgment on 
the moral man is traceable to a desire to pre- 
serve certain religious standards. But true 
religion will not suffer by viewing this subject 
broadly and dispassionately. The recognition 
of the religious character of the moral man 
only bridges the gulf between morality and 
religion, rendering it easier for moral men to 
enter where there is more light and truth. The 
gulf is not closed. It is not affirmed that the 
scope of the merely moral life is as broad as the 
truly religious life. This will appear in the 
consideration of the second question proposed 
at the outset. 

2. What, then, does the moral man lack? 

He lacks that which, in the last analysis, 
is the source of the highest morality — with- 
out which not only religion, but morality, 
would perish. That something is conscious 
fellowship with the Divine Father; the recog- 
nition of God as the source of all goodness; 
the feeling that nature and man find their unity 
and only explanation in the eternal God. He 
lacks that clear vision of the higher life, that 
sweet communion with the spirit that dwells in 



46 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

all things, which brings one into real and true 
harmony with God, and furnishes those mo- 
tives which lie back of all good conduct. 

Does the good man grow up isolated from 
religious influences? In the majority of cases 
it will be found that he was reared by a reli- 
gious mother in a religious home, and that 
flowing in his veins are those religious forces 
that constitute the very life-blood of civiliza- 
tion. To think of individual excellence of char- 
acter and conduct as something self-originated, 
developing independently of those religious in- 
fluences everywhere active, is to create an 
abstraction. Such men do not exist. Morality 
is social as well as individual. Social ideals, 
social habits, and public opinion vitally affect 
the individual, who inherits a fund of moral 
ideals, and is reared in an atmosphere pervaded 
by religious thought and religious feeling. 

Where on this earth are to be found com- 
munities in which there are social security and 
freedom, justice and philanthropy, respect for 
women and protection to children, without 
developed religion? The rise and fall of na- 
tionSj although not wholly determined by reli- 
gion, are nevertheless intimately connected 
with the growth and decline of religion. 



RELIGION AND MORALITY 47 

Do not these facts tend to show that the 
moral man is hving on borrowed capital, as it 
were ? He is upheld by a Power which he does 
not worship, and is deeply indebted to institu- 
tions and literature the origin and significance 
of which he fails to perceive. In short, he is 
what he is largely because of a religion he 
disowns. 

Furthermore, morality depends upon cer- 
tain sentiments, affections, aspirations. Good 
conduct does not create itself. It is the expres- 
sion of inward ideas, desires, motives, feelings. 
Its source is in the soul. The continuance of 
good conduct in the world depends upon the 
development of right motives and true ideas. 

The fundamental question in ethics, there- 
fore, is the ground of obligation. Why should 
we be honest ? Why should we love our neigh- 
bor? Why should we be chaste and kind? 
These questions will never be satisfactorily and 
conclusively answered without the aid of reli- 
gion. To say that the end is self-realization is 
not enough. God must be recognized as the 
ultimate ground of obligation and the Perfect 
Ideal. 

Ezekiel G. Robinson says: 

If it be true that our highest aim in life should be 
the realization of the highest ideal manhood, and if the 



48 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

highest ideal manhood consists in a resemblance to the 
perfect archetype of all personal being, then our ultimate 
ground of obligation should be looked for in the moral 
nature of the original and archetypal being — God. 

In the feeling that we are God's children 
we find a powerful incentive to seek the welfare 
of our neighbors who are our brothers. In the 
feeling that we are made in the image of God 
we find a motive to avoid all those things which 
deface and disgrace this image. In the recog- 
nition of God as everywhere present we rejoice 
to discover that in obeying what we call moral 
laws we are doing those things which a filial 
love of God requires us to do. 

Professor John S. Mackenzie, in his Manual 
of Ethics, after discussing the various theories 
respecting the ultimate ground of obligation or 
duty, all of which leave God out of account, 
says : " It must be evident to the discerning 
reader that, in what has gone before, we have 
occasionally been skating on rather thin ice. 
The ultimate questions to which we have been 
led have not received any quite satisfactory 
solution." All ethical systems lead inevitably 
to the temple of worship. Ethical teachers 
may philosophize and lay down very useful 
rules; but they cannot ground these rules on 



RELIGION AND MORALITY 49 

any firm foundation, and they cannot suggest 
any power that will induce men to obey the 
rules, unless they take God into their counsels 
and point sinful souls to him as the source of 
all moral energy. 

Knowledge of the right is no doubt essen- 
tial; but most men fail in the performance of 
duty, not for want of knowledge, but for lack 
of moral power to do that which they believe to 
be right. We cannot acquire that power unless 
our souls are inspired and sustained by power- 
ful incentives and holy affections. 

Lastly, life is not merely conformity to 
moral laws^ faithful performance of duties. 
Our hearts crave rest, peace, joy, the sense of 
harmony and fellowship with all things. Be- 
sides the satisfaction arising from fidelity to 
earthly obligations, the truly religious man's 
life is enriched and strengthened by the con- 
templation of divine things, by sweet com- 
munion with the Father. He does not feel that 
isolation and loneliness, that despair and doubt, 
which agitates the souls of those who cannot 
look with hope beyond the grave, nor feel that 
back of the shifting panorama of the universe 
and the varied experiences of mankind there is 
a divine life. To stop short of this point, as 



50 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

President Hyde well says, "is to leave our 
world incompleted, our minds unsatisfied, our 
hearts unfilled, our wills unfree. It is the re- 
luctance of the mind and heart to accept this 
lame and impotent conclusion, the refusal of 
the will to withdraw from the field at this stage 
of the contest, that drives man with the eager- 
ness of an infinite passion on into the sphere of 
religion." 

So conscience and duty, the watchwords of 
the moral man, point to God. The search for 
unity and for the ground of moral obligations 
leads to him. The soul of man will never find 
itself, will never achieve rest and peace, in the 
mere effort to live up tO' a moral ideal stripped 
of all relationship to God, the ultimate source 
of all our ideals of duty. We cannot really 
love abstract truth. We must love persons. 
We must find our deepest and truest inspira- 
tion to do right in the love of God. 



CHAPTER IV 

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH 

Are religious societies essential to the main- 
tenance and spread of religion? Or, are they 
arbitrary creations of priests to perpetuate 
their influence over society? Could we not 
get along without them, and find in other 
societies and institutions substitutes adequate 
to all our individual and social needs ? Thou- 
sands of people seem to think that churches 
encumber the earth, or at least, however much 
some may need them, that they can get along 
quite as well without them. 

A man could go through life blind or 
crippled. Millions have lived and died in 
poverty and in ignorance. Does this prove 
that a complete body is undesirable, or that 
man's best life can be lived in poverty or in 
ignorance ? The question, therefore, which one 
ought to ask is not : " Can I exist without the 
fellowship of a church ? " but rather : "Is the 
church a natural institution, originating in 
response to the soul's deepest needs, and abso- 
lutely essential to the highest development of 

51 



52 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

mankind?" If it be found that the church is 
not a cunning device to keep aHve superstitions, 
but is a normal and inevitable expression of 
man's religious experience, and can be ex- 
plained only by considering certain universal 
laws, then the individual's duty toward the 
church is seen in its true light. 

We live in the midst, not only of indi- 
viduals, but of groups of individuals, associa- 
tions, and institutions. The origin of the 
community life, of governmental and industrial 
organizations, of schools and fraternal societies, 
is not due to caprice. Natural laws determined 
the appearance of associational life and its 
development upon the earth. Down deep in 
the human heart are certain intensely active 
cravings or desires which constitute the main- 
spring of progress. As man advances step by 
step from the savage stage, he is pushed on 
from within. These internal forces have 
always been at work, and without them man 
would sink back into primitive barbarism. So, 
when we inquire why society has courts of 
law, legislatures, industrial organizations, 
schools and colleges, we must seek the answer 
in the soul of man. The visible institution is 
the manifestation of what has been going on in 



RELIGION AND THE CHURCH 53 

the inner life, just as the trees and the flowers, 
the streams and the mountains, are the out- 
ward expression of unseen forces. 

Experts differ as to the exact nature and 
number of the desires which impel men to seek 
one another's society, and to lay the founda- 
tions of institutions. But they all agree that 
language, literature, science, art, customs, laws, 
and governments are the visible fruit or prod- 
uct of these desires, and that all these change 
in accordance with corresponding changes in 
the soul of man. Various forces combine to 
aid man in the effort to satisfy the cravings of 
his inner life. His increasing knowledge, the 
product of expanding experience, shows him 
the mistakes of the past, and helps him to 
improve the institutions which he inherits. 

No one desire is responsible for any institu- 
tion. Some one desire may be more marked in 
its influence than others; but there is an inti- 
mate connection between all of them, and, to a 
greater or less degree, each human activity and 
each social institution is the expression of a 
combination of impulses and desires, thoughts 
and ideals. 

Let us note some of these desires and ob- 
serve their effects. 



54 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

The desire for health leads men to study 
the human body and the medicinal properties 
of various substances. It leads to schools of 
medicine, hospitals, asylums, and other institu- 
tions intended to promote health. It also in- 
cites to activities for the procuring of food and 
clothes and houses, so that life may be sus- 
tained. 

The desire for wealth, and for the comforts 
and luxuries which wealth can furnish, is a 
powerful incentive, to which may be traced 
manufacturing, trade and commerce, and a 
variety of industrial organizations. 

The desire for knowledge finds expression 
in libraries, schools, and colleges. 

The desire for social order and for justice 
gives rise to governments and judiciary institu- 
tions, with all the established customs, laws, 
and institutions involved therein. 

Not to pursue these illustrations further, is 
it not apparent that social institutions grow up 
as naturally as flowers spring out of the 
ground, or as water is drawn by the sun into 
clouds ? 

Men associate themselves together because 
they cannot help it. They are drawn to one 
another by invisible forces, and the product of 



RELIGION AND THE CHURCH 55 

this co-operation is institutional life and social 
groups developing according to natural laws. 

Certain kinds of institutions and laws may 
seem to have a definite beginning at some fixed 
time, but there are elements in every institution 
w^hich can be traced back to the distant past 
No expression of the social life can be under- 
stood unless it is viewed historically as the 
outgrowth of the nature of man and the prod- 
uct of centuries of human development. Social 
institutions, therefore, do not spring up be- 
cause a body of men came together and said : 
" Go to now, let us make literature, or establish 
an industrial system, or organize government." 
These things grow, and they grow out of the 
human soul in harmony with, and obedience to, 
universal laws. 

Now, then, the important question before 
us is this : Do religious organizations exist in 
response to universal needs ? Do they obey the 
same laws which control and determine the 
origin and growth of all other social institu- 
tions? Our line of inquiry will apply to all 
forms of religious organizations, although the 
advanced religious bodies, such as the Jewish 
and Christian churches, more clearly illustrate 
the ideas expressed. Which of the many claim- 



56 PRIMARY FACTS IX RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

ants for the honor is the true church does not 
concern us, because all churches are rooted 
in human needs, which is the main proposition 
to be considered. When one is convinced of 
that, his duty becomes quite clear, and he may 
well be left to his own sense of his personal 
needs and his individual tastes to select that 
church in which to worship and to labor which 
seems best fitted to his life. He must be a 
remarkable and unique character who cannot 
find, among the variety of churches and sects, 
some local communion which may contribute 
something to his life, and with which he may 
co-operate for the promotion of the general 
welfare. 

To make men realize the privileges and 
duties of patriotism, it is first necessary to 
inculcate those truths upon which the duty of 
the citizen to his country is founded. Does 
the individual love his country and seek its 
welfare ? If so, he must support political insti- 
tutions of some kind. Partisan issues, however 
important, are not so vital as the question of 
patriotic loyalty to the fundamental institutions 
of the country. One's sense of loyalty may 
lead him to seek a change in these institutions, 
or to join one political party in preference to 



RELIGION AND THE CHURCH 57 

another, or to be thoroughly independent of 
parties ; but he will not hold himself aloof from 
all political institutions, and remain totally in- 
different to them, if he truly wishes to promote 
his country's welfare. 

A church is a social group, a fraternal or- 
ganization. It is a nobler expression of the 
brotherhood principle than those societies and 
lodges which are confined to one sex or to 
adults. It includes men, women, and children. 
There is a good deal of brotherhood in this 
world that excludes women and children. So- 
cieties which do so can never truly represent, 
in miniature, the world-wide brotherhood 
which is the goal of humanity. So, too, the 
church takes in all classes, rich and poor, edu- 
cated and ignorant. All this is true because 
religion is essentially social. It constitutes one 
of the spiritual bonds of society. It is a phase 
of man's craving for sociability, for companion- 
ship. The higher the religious life, the more 
adequately will the brotherhood feature of reli- 
gion be expressed in the religious organization. 

It will perhaps be said that these observa- 
tions do not correspond with the actual facts, 
for the contest between sects and the quarrels 
of churches are most notorious. It is, indeed, 



58 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

true that churches do not live up to their ideals ; 
or, to put it in another and truer way, the ideal 
is not yet as clear as it will be some day. But 
experience with all other societies boasting of 
their fraternal features will convince the 
thoughtful that all brotherhood up to date 
means brotherhood limited. The trade unions, 
the Masonic and other fraternal societies, are 
made up of men whose consciousness of 
brotherhood does not extend much beyond their 
favorite group, and it seldom reaches all the 
members of that fellowship. The clashing of 
groups is a characteristic feature of modern 
life. There is an intense group-consciousness, 
which must be further developed to close the 
chasm between groups and eventuate in a con- 
sciousness that all men are brothers. 

But the point we insist upon is that religious 
societies, like all other fraternities, owe their 
existence, in no small degree, to the craving 
for fellowship. The community life is a step 
in advance of unrestricted individualism, which 
is anarchy and barbarism. Men follow this 
impulse toward unity up to a certain point, and 
then stop, restrained by false ideas, inherited 
prejudices, and other forms of human weak- 
ness. They allow mistaken conceptions of life 



RELIGION AND THE CHURCH 59 

to overrule the dictates of the heart. Theories 
keep men apart as well as hatred and jealousy. 

The churches, however, do exhibit a spirit 
of brotherhood to a greater extent than is often 
conceded, and they have been an indispensable 
social factor in the evolution of human fellow- 
ship. They furnish that social environment 
which is essential to the development of the 
individual's religious life. Lawyers, physi- 
cians, workingmen, business men, artists, and 
literary men feel the need of some social co- 
operation for the promotion of common inter- 
ests and the development of their own lives. 
They know that knowledge is broadened and 
usefulness is enhanced by contact with those 
of the same profession or business. 

William Morris makes John Ball say in his 
sermon : 

Forsooth, brothers, fellowship is heaven, and lack 
of fellowship is hell ; fellowship is life, and lack of 
fellowship is death; and the deeds that ye do upon the 
earth it is for fellowship's sake that ye do them, and 
for the life that is in it, that shall live on and on for- 
ever, and each one of you part of it, while many a 
man's life upon the earth from the earth shall wane. 

So the religious society, being a group of 
persons bound together by a common interest 
in pursuit of certain high ends, affords just that 



6o PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

environment in which the individual may culti- 
vate his spiritual nature under the most favor- 
able circumstances. Since the moral life of 
each individual is shaped to a great degree by 
group-sentiments and group-ideals, each indi- 
vidual should seek closer affiliation with that 
group where the ideals of life are purest and 
highest. In the friendship and sympathy of 
those who are seeking fellowship with God, the 
individual will find the social influence essential 
to the broad development of his moral life. 

Again, the benevolent impulse, the desire 
to assist the distressed and afflicted, draws 
people together in religious societies. It is not 
claimed that this desire has operated with equal 
force in all ages or in all religions. However 
feebly the benevolent impulses may manifest 
themselves, they have always been present in 
humanity, and for two thousand years they 
have been a marked characteristic of Christian 
churches. 

The individual who desires to serve his 
fellow-men needs courage, stimulus, direction, 
training. The mere desire to render assistance 
is not sufficient to guarantee the best results. 
Knowledge of what the helpless and unfor- 
tunate really need is necessary to render the 



RELIGION AND THE CHURCH 6l 

desire to serve effective. There are thousands 
of people, trying to spread happiness, who 
ignore the vital conditions of true human wel- 
fare. Various ameliorative schemes and or- 
ganizations for mutual aid are carried on with- 
out reference to man's deepest spiritual needs. 
If one wishes to benefit his fellow-men in the 
most substantial and permanent way, he cannot 
afford to neglect religion and the church. The 
church has done a vast amount of good in 
fostering and directing the philanthropic de- 
sires of mankind. 

In the world-wide struggle against sin, 
ignorance, and poverty, the individual who 
battles alone places himself in hostility to the 
tendency of the ages. Co-operation is the 
noblest achievement of civilization. Social 
order and social progress began when men 
banded themselves together for the common 
good. We are born for sympathetic and help- 
ful relationships. " Bear ye one another's bur- 
dens," is not only an injunction of an apostle, 
it is a law of life. It is not merely a duty, it is 
a privilege. It does not mean self-sacrifice in 
the old and popular sense. It is the only way 
to save ourselves, to realize the ends for which 
we were born. Among the many ends for 



62 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

which men co-operate, none surpasses in dig- 
nity and significance that of the moral better- 
ment of mankind. This is distinctively the 
mission of the church. 

The desire for inspiration, comfort, sym- 
pathy is universal. In the struggle of life 
everybody feels the need of a kind and encour- 
aging word; something to brighten life, to 
give hope and peace. Multitudes attend the 
churches on quiet Sundays, weary in mind and 
body, agitated by the conflicts of the week, 
weighed down with cares and griefs, knowing 
by precious experience that they will find rest 
and joy in the music, prayers, and sermon. 
Here they will be greeted by friendly faces and 
cheered by words of sympathy. 

Let not the shortcomings of the churches 
blind us to the good they have done and still 
do. Every observer who takes broad views of 
things must acknowledge that God has given 
consolation to the bereaved and inspiration to 
the despondent through the friendliness of 
those who meet together for common worship. 
The ministrations of the church to the poor and 
sick have been of incalculable benefit to man- 
kind. Witness the hospitals, asylums, charit- 
able and other philanthropic institutions, which 



RELIGION AND THE CHURCH 63 

the church has founded, or caused to be 
founded, through its influence over the benevo- 
lent impulse of its members. No other institu- 
tion approaches the church in this field, and no 
other institution can take its place, because the 
church is the custodian of those influences, 
inspirations, ideals, and truths v^hich are essen- 
tial to the maintenance and further develop- 
ment of uplifting and ministering institutions. 
It is the love of God and his creatures which 
constitutes the unfailing spring of sympathy 
and philanthropic activities. To spread this 
love among men is the church's chief privilege 
and sacred mission. 

Lastly, the church is a visible expression of 
man's desire for righteousness. We have al- 
ready seen that man's consciousness of sin and 
recognition of a higher life, his inborn craving 
for harmony v^ith his environment and peace 
w^ith God, are distinctive traits of human 
nature. In this respect, as in the others, the 
religious society is founded on human necessity. 

We are beginning to see that the problems 
of sin and righteousness are problems in edu- 
cation; not that sin can be uprooted by mere 
intellectual development, but that the v^ay to 
save the world from sin is to save the children ; 



64 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

and the way to save the children is to train 
them from the cradle in the love and service of 
God, so that their whole life will be one con- 
tinuous, normal development in harmony with 
God. This ideal is hazy enough yet, to be sure, 
because for many years to come the problem of 
the adult sinner will remain. 

Rightly viewed, then, the church is a 
training-school for righteousness. The desire 
tO' be good, like the other desires mentioned, 
needs to be directed by education. Knowledge 
of the nature of the true ideal of life is essen- 
tial. Power of will has to be secured. Sym- 
pathy with the good has to be cultivated. 
Moral strength, courage, and endurance must 
be developed, if the perceived and cherished 
ideals are to be realized. It is not enough to 
awaken holy sentiments and enthusiastic appre- 
ciation of some beautiful ideal of love or 
service; the beholder must be sustained by 
inward power in the real battle of life, to be 
loyal to his ideals. This work belongs pecu- 
liarly to the church. It renders its truest 
service to humanity when it takes man's desire 
for righteousness, interprets it, unfolds the 
ideal, and helps man to realize it. 

But some will ask : " Need we go to school 



RELIGION AND THE CHURCH 65 

to be educated ? " The possibility of getting an 
education without going to school need not be 
denied, although it is a debatable question 
whether such an education as the schools and 
colleges furnish can be had without the various 
advantages of school life. Still, let us concede 
that the thing is possible, and that many edu- 
cated men have never been to school. Is that 
the real issue, after all ? How many would get 
an education if there were no schools? What 
would society be without them? As civiliza- 
tion progresses, the number of schools in- 
creases, and the range of their influence ex- 
pands. Will anyone deny that schools are 
essential to satisfy the general desire for 
knowledge, or affirm that society would be as 
well off without these social institutions? If 
all this is also true of churches in relation to 
the religious life, as has been shown, it is appar- 
ent that those who are indifferent to the 
churches, who insist upon their children going 
to school, but neglect their religious develop- 
ment by allowing them to keep away from 
churches, commit a fatal mistake. Here and 
there some may "get along" without the 
churches; but, abandoning the field of theory, 
and taking life as we find it, the multitude that 
tries to live without the church suffers. 



66 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

As millions go through life intellectually 
starving because they had no schooling, or 
because their school days ended early in life, so 
the multitudes who forsake the church deprive 
themselves of a moral education which they 
greatly need. 

There is another view of this indifference 
to the church, which applies more to the com- 
paratively few who are admirable specimens of 
morality, but who give churches a wide berth 
or attend rarely. Although we are not willing 
to grant that any man is better because he 
refuses to associate himself with some religious 
society, for the sake of the argument let us 
concede that some do exhibit fine traits of char- 
acter without fellowship with religious socie- 
ties. If it be true, as we think has been 
proved, that modern churches do promote the 
general welfare, and if the masses need the 
churches, what shall be said of the attitude of 
indifference assumed by some moral men to 
these institutions so essential to religion? 
Think of the millions of men and women, 
struggling amid privations, afflictions, and 
temptations, attracted by glimpses of a higher 
life, yet battling with inferior desires, and bur- 
dened with many cares and trials! Think of 



RELIGION AND THE CHURCH 6'J 

the havoc caused by wrongdoing! Think of 
the abuse of noble faculties and the gross satis- 
faction of desires legitimate in themselves! 
Think of the tears and heart-aches and troubles 
due to sin ! Think of this whole spectacle of 
mankind struggling for righteousness in the 
face of unfavorable conditions, or hopelessly 
enslaved by inherited evil tendencies or ac- 
quired weakness ! Can a man admit that these 
millions need the churches, that churches can 
and do assist these burden-bearers and suf- 
ferers, and yet justify himself in his refusal to 
help the church perform its noble mission? 
Simply because he was born with superior en- 
dowments and reared amid favorable condi- 
tions, so that he can keep himself '' unspotted 
from the world," is it right for him to withhold 
the helping hand from his struggling fellow- 
men? It is not only a question of what the 
church can do for us, but what we can do for 
those to whom the church ministers. "To go 
it alone" may smack of independence; but it is 
just that sort of independence which, if it be- 
came a universal practice, would shatter the 
foundations of civilized society, deal a death- 
blow to every philanthropic institution, and 
revive the ancient regime of barbarism. 



68 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

Noblesse oblige. The spirit of the true 
knight and gentleman requires every man of 
influence and character to support those insti- 
tutions which history proves to be essential to 
the progress of civilization and the highest 
welfare of humanity. It argues a serious de- 
fect in character — suggesting that perhaps 
those who say they do not need the church may 
need it most of all — when one is content to 
enjoy the fruits of others' sacrifices and labors, 
without doing one's share of the world's work. 

We have no apology to offer for the mis- 
takes of religious bodies. Dissensions, cruelty, 
and persecution have marked the history of 
the church. Creeds have tyrannized over life, 
and orthodoxy has been preferred to loving- 
kindness. The church has been regarded as an 
end in itself, instead of a means to promote 
righteousness and brotherhood. The church 
has hidden Christ as well as revealed him. The 
Christian church, like all other religious so- 
cieties, is a human institution as well as an 
abiding-place for the spirit of God. The weak- 
ness of human nature has expressed itself in 
the church, as it does in every human institu- 
tion. Men have had to leave some churches in 
the interests of their own souls and a higher 



RELIGION AND THE CHURCH 69 

religious life for the world. All churches are 
not equally promoting the best interests of 
mankind. But the same may be said of gov- 
ernments, courts, industrial organizations, 
schools, and family life ; yet no sane man would 
seek relief from the ills of organization by 
advocating absolute anarchy. The principle of 
organization, the benefits of association, the 
delights of companionship, are too well estab- 
lished to render it likely that the world will 
return to the individualism of savagery. 

Theories aside, practical experience with 
many types of human life has convinced us that 
most men stay out of the church not because 
they cherish higher ideals than those who are 
in the church. In many cases it is the love of 
self, the desire to gratify lower desires unre- 
strained by considerations of duty. In others 
it is sheer indifference to one's true welfare, 
and a failure to appreciate the benefits to be 
derived from religious worship and instruction. 
While no church may be perfect, there are 
thousands that could prove of incalculable bene- 
fit to those who spurn their aid. The general 
tendency, the dominant influence, of the 
churches is on the side of righteousness. They 
can be improved because man himself is not 



70 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

perfect. Nevertheless, the church is the mighti- 
est moral force in modern society. The world 
needs its teaching and its inspiration. Love 
and good v^orks are promoted by its ministra- 
tions, and the individual soul is strengthened 
by its influences to encounter temptation and 
to bear the burdens of our common humanity. 



CHAPTER V 
RELIGION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 

Ruskin was once invited to tell his York- 
shire friends how to build a suitable exchange 
for Bradford. Instead of talking about styles 
of architecture, he gave them a lecture on taste 
and life. " Pardon me for telling you frankly," 
he said, "that you cannot have good archi- 
tecture merely by asking people's advice on 
occasion. All good architecture is the expres- 
sion of national life and character; and it is 
produced by a prevalent and eager national 
taste, or desire for beauty." 

It has been said that all industrial problems 
are fast becoming political problems, and that 
political problems are in turn becoming reli- 
gious problems. This is not one of those 
plausible, catchy generalities, with more rhyme 
than sense, which confuse rather than enlighten. 
It is based upon a profound fact, of which we 
are all slowly becoming conscious. Social 
progress is dependent upon human character. 
What we are determines what we do and why 
we do it. 

71 



"J^ PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

Science, art, literature, and law are not 
distinct entities, things existing in themselves 
apart from the souls of men, and acting for 
good or ill upon the lives of men. They are 
the expressions of the human soul. It is not 
art or science v^hich progresses so much as it 
is the soul. It is man who advances. Indus- 
trial systems and political governments are 
infallible signs of the mental and moral state 
of those who live under them. 

So social progress means ultimately pro- 
gress in thought, feeling, and will-power. It 
means the continuous conscious adaptation of 
man to his spiritual and physical environment. 
The most important element in this progress 
is man's religious life. We do not mean that 
every religious doctrine or every religious in- 
stitution has been uniformly on the side of 
social progress, but that man's inborn desire to 
seek right relations with God, nature, and his 
fellow-men is the chief source of social better- 
ment. All governments and courts of justice 
have not been friendly to social progress, but 
the desire for social order and the love of 
justice are human impulses, right in them- 
selves, and ever impelling men to seek right 
political relations. 



RELIGION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 73 

In this sense, we affirm that reHgion is es- 
sential to social progress. And as the religious 
life develops, as religions are purified and 
brought into closer harmony with the divine 
life, all forms of social life, all institutions and 
activities, are affected for good. In other 
words, where we find the most exalted ideas 
of God, and the strongest desire to love and to 
obey God, there we find the cleanest, happiest, 
and most prosperous society. 

The moral life of man, then, is bound to 
seek expression in literature, politics, and in- 
dustry. To improve governments, to secure 
peace in industrial circles, to enable men to 
employ their leisure aright, to correct methods 
of industry so that they will minister to char- 
acter, to establish justice upon the earth, it is 
absolutely necessary that man should be de- 
veloped in true religion. 

Consider the economic loss and the eco- 
nomic friction arising from moral delinquency. 
Dishonesty, laziness, greed, unrestrained am- 
bition, inhumanity are among the causes of in- 
dustrial problems. No business could long exist 
in which the employees w^ere all thieves or 
drunkards or libertines. How many concerns 
have failed, not because the proprietors lacked 



74 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

business sagacity and energy, but because of 
dishonesty or greed, or moral delinquency of 
some sort! How strenuously do banks and 
railroad corporations insist upon securing em- 
ployees of good moral character! Industrial 
problems are a thousand times more difficult 
of solution because men try to overreach one 
another, trample upon principles of brother- 
hood, and aim at profits or wages instead of 
social service. 

Does it require argument to prove that the 
real political problem is not to spread political 
knowledge, but to get rid of moral iniquity? 
If citizens and politicians wanted to do right, 
would not many political problems cease to vex 
us ? Bribery, extravagance in the use of public 
funds, rake-offs and cheating in public con- 
tracts, franchise-stealing, are among the worst 
of our political troubles, and every one of them 
has its real center in the corruption in human 
nature. Society is not menaced by these evils 
because men cannot discover the laws of muni- 
cipal government. It is not political wisdom 
we so sorely need, but righteousness. As Lin- 
coln Steffens declares : 

You can't reform a city by reforming part of it. 
You can't reform a city alone. You can't reform 



RELIGION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 75 

politics alone. And as for corruption and the under- 
standing thereof, we cannot run 'round and 'round in 
municipal rings and understand ring corruption ; it 
isn't a ring thing And I have found that I can- 
not confine myself to politics and grasp all the ramifica- 
tions of political corruption ; it isn't political corruption. 
It's corruption. 

Would that we might cease our speculative 
treatment of the real political issue and face 
the truth. Political corruption is the corrup- 
tion of human nature — the wickedness of 
man's heart. The political problem is a reli- 
gious problem. 

How forcibly does history bear out these 
observations! Social distresses, such as war, 
poverty, ignorance, tyranny, and domestic 
misery, in no small degree have been due to 
corrupt rulers, to privileged classes that gained 
their power by unrighteous means, and used it 
recklessly and selfishly, sacrificing every inter- 
est of their fellow-men on the altar of greed or 
ambition. 

It is often difiicult to understand an intri- 
cate political or economic problem, to analyze 
complex conditions, and to seize upon the 
principle to be followed. But a much harder 
task is that of socializing the individual, indu- 
cing men to love their fellows and to seek their 



*](> PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

welfare. Every real and vital improvement in 
social life is due, not to the coercion of laws or 
the force of arms, but to the progression of 
moral character. 

The arts-and-crafts movement, still in its 
infancy, is based on the idea that men do and 
must express what they are in their work. 
They can lie in wood and stone and iron quite 
as well as in words. A badly constructed build- 
ing tumbles into ruins, and precious lives are 
lost. Somebody lied and cheated. A miserable 
character has expressed itself in fraud that 
resulted in a waste of time, money, and life. 
Our houses are full of lies, base imitations, 
shiftless work, and greed for gain, in the shape 
of useless baubles, shoddy garments, furniture 
that quickly falls into pieces, fraudulent decora- 
tions. 

The remedy for these evils is to be found 
in a nobler and broader religious life. As 
William L. Price has said : 

Blasphemy is neglect. Blasphemy is don't care. 
The workman's bench is an altar. You have perhaps 
associated reverence and blasphemy with your attitude 
toward some abstract or distant or grotesque or 
demoniacal concept of God. But I say that reverence 
and blasphemy may with more ominous menace dictate 
your attitude toward man. I can see God in the honest 



RELIGION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS JJ 

joint of a chair. I can see God woven in tapestries and 
beaten in brasses and bound in the covers of books. 

What is required, then, to produce a good 
architecture, good Hterature, good furniture, 
good anything, is not merely technical knowl- 
edge and skill, but good character. We express 
what we are in our work. \\^e cannot hide the 
truth. Our methods of trade and manufactur- 
ing, our systems of politics and of finance, will 
be honeycombed with corruption if we our- 
selves are corrupt. Refine, elevate, purify the 
soul, and the effect will be seen in every depart- 
ment of human activity. This is going to the 
root of the matter. This kind of reform is 
really formation. It is vital. It deals with 
the disease itself and not with the symptoms. 
In the knowledge of God, in the passion for 
honesty and justice, in the love of one's neigh- 
bor, will be found those dynamic forces which 
will create a new social order. 

Viewing this question from the other side, 
because activities and institutions react upon 
men and help to shape character, we find a new 
and high standard by which to estimate the 
value of industrial and political methods, and 
by which social progress can be measured. 
Churches, schools, industrial combinations, 



78 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

labor unions, political parties, and political 
habits are to be judged by their effect upon 
human character. Do they refine or degrade? 
Do they tend to infidelity in human relations 
or to brotherhood, to avarice or to generosity, 
tO' inhumanity or to sympathy? When the 
moral character suffers under any form of 
social activity, no justification can be advanced 
for the continued existence of that activity, ex- 
cept on changed lines. It is an enemy to be 
slain without mercy. 

The most superficial acquaintance with 
modern political and economic literature, and 
with the social problems of our time, will 
satisfy candid minds that the hopeful feature 
is the demand for the application of this life- 
test to modern government and industry. The 
ethical influence of political methods and forms 
of industrial organization is a primary con- 
sideration with thoughtful and patriotic men. 
When it is asked whether a business pays or 
a political program is desirable, more and more 
is attention directed toward the ethical stand- 
ard. It is not enough to show that large 
dividends will result, or that the temporary 
victory of a political party will follow. The 
question is fast becoming a moral one. Is 



RELIGION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 79 

character developed? Is human life enriched? 
Wealth is viewed in terms of life. Machines 
are judged, not only by their ability to produce 
material goods, but by their effect upon the 
workers. Political and industrial programs 
are tested in the light of their probable effects 
upon the moral ideals and moral life of the 
nation. There is an increasing insistence upon 
the necessity of employing this standard as the 
real and fundamental criterion of social prog- 
ress. Never before in the history of the world 
has the ethical issue been so emphatically, per- 
sistently, and clearly presented as it is today. 
Never were so many men seeking to subdue 
selfishness by the development of the altruistic 
sentiments. Never was the duty of the indi- 
vidual to society so nobly conceived and so 
eagerly obeyed as at the present time. 

And, further — a fact to be regarded as 
practically conclusive of the position we have 
taken — never before has there been such gen- 
eral diffusion of happiness, prosperity, and 
knowledge. More people share in the benefits 
of civilization today than ever before. Social 
progress, in other words, has gone hand in 
hand with the moral progress of the race. In- 
deed, social progress is fundamentally moral 



8o PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

progress. As the higher Hfe of man has been 
developed, every phase of man's hfe has been 
elevated. He is healthier, in possession of 
more of this world's goods^ richer in knov^l- 
edge, on the whole happier than ever before. 
All this surely indicates the path to further 
social progress. It should help us all to see 
that, if we would bind factions, classes, and 
nations together in a nobler brotherhood; if 
we would abolish special privileges, establish 
justice, disseminate mercy and loving-kindness, 
we can do so only by developing the spiritual 
life of man. The bonds that bind us and make 
us one are spiritual bonds. 

The victory over hatred and envy which 
keep men apart, and over the greed that causes 
men to trespass on human rights and disregard 
human obligations, can be achieved only by 
fostering love of God and of man in the human 
heart ; that love which is not a vague sentiment 
or an empty feeling ; the love of God who gave 
his best to save the world; the self-sacrificing 
love that seeks the welfare of the beloved ; that 
love for man which found its highest expres- 
sion in Christ who went about doing good, who 
never placed the things of this world above the 
value of the soul, who taught us that " a man's 



RELIGION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 8 1 

life consisteth not in the abundance of the 
things which he possesseth." 

In claiming so much for religion we do not 
forget the influences of scientific investigations 
and discoveries, mechanical inventions, and 
intellectual acquirements. Newspapers, libra- 
ries, schools, and the increasing comforts of 
life, all have their part in the world's progress. 
Industrial combinations and organized labor 
profoundly modify the conditions under which 
the work of the world is carried on, and more 
or less directly facilitate social betterment. 
But all these achievements have to be used in 
the right way, and the use we make of them 
largely determines their real value. A news- 
paper, for example, may be a curse or a blessing 
to society. Its effect is determined by the 
character of its moral influence. If it is con- 
ducted solely as a business enterprise, without 
regard to moral considerations; if its pro- 
prietors use its columns to deceive people with 
lying advertisements ; if they accept bribes and 
support corrupt politicians, the influence of 
that newspaper will be hostile to social prog- 
ress. 

Printing-presses, type-setting machines, 
rapid transportation, and swift communication 



82 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

are not in themselves a blessing. They are means 
to an end. What do we say in our newspapers ? 
What messages flash across the wires? What 
goes on in our skyscrapers and beautiful build- 
ings? What use do we make of the comforts 
and luxuries bestowed upon us by science? 
The answer to these questions fixes the real 
value of inventions. So no amount of ma- 
terial progress can render religious considera- 
tions irrelevant. Of itself no mechanical 
achievement will ultimately promote social 
progress. 

Politics and religion are not two distinct 
things. Political practices and institutions may 
be tested by ethical standards, because they are 
expressions of the moral life of a people. We 
have just as good politics as we deserve, be- 
cause our political condition is just what we 
are — no better, no worse. 

Political deeds spring out of the common 
life and then react upon public morals. This 
suggests the folly of trying to reform politics 
without changing the moral life of the people, 
or of attempting to improve the moral life, 
leaving the political habits and institutions un- 
touched. They are both parts of one process, 
and we must work at both ends of the problem. 



RELIGION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 83 

There is no such thing as individual moral- 
ity, if by that term is meant a private morality 
that has no relationship in any sense with social 
morality. The individual is constantly under 
the influence of social standards of right and 
wrong. 

The boy among us becomes familiar with 
all forms of political corruption. He breathes 
a tainted atmosphere. He reads and hears of 
all sorts of political frauds, bribery, ballot-box 
stuffing, and franchise-stealing. While he 
hears of protests from the few, he soon learns 
that all of us, represented by the state, really 
do not care. We do little or nothing. We do 
not enforce the law impartially. We catch and 
punish the small offenders, and let the big ones 
go. The youth soon learns of flagrant viola- 
tions of the laws against gambling and dis- 
orderly houses, excise regulations, and other 
ordinances dealing with institutionalized vice. 
He notes the public indifference, the refusal of 
officials to do their duty. All this knowledge, 
this intimate acquaintance with the real 
thoughts, feelings, and standards of the people, 
slowly shapes his life. He accepts prevailing 
customs and ideals as his own ends in life. He 
soon feels about all these things the way every- 



84 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

body else feels. And if he does not become 
either a disreputable or a respectable rascal, he 
joins that large class of easy-going, indifferent, 
unpatriotic ''good citizens." 

Much of the political corruption of our 
time and the general character of our public 
morality are attributable to two leading features 
of our social life ; first, the love of money, with 
all its kindred passions unrestrained by moral 
ideals; secondly, the double standard of ethics 
which is almost universally employed in polit- 
ical and business circles. Perhaps the latter ac- 
counts in no slight degree for the uncontrolled 
power of the love of money. If this dual 
standard could be destroyed, and the moral life 
unified, it would mean more for our country 
than could be accomplished by any other re- 
form. 

The average man, no matter how active in 
the church he may be, is one thing in his home 
and private life, and quite another being in his 
political and commercial life. He has a differ- 
ent code of honor, another standard for con- 
duct, in his more public life than that which he 
respects in domestic, religious, and club circles. 
The political jobber, the trickster and exploiter 
in business, the oppressive monopolist and 



RELIGION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 85 

franchise-stealer, is often a respected and 
cherished friend, a devoted husband, a zealous 
churchman, and a benevolent philanthropist. 

This state of things cannot last long. It is 
a temporary stage in the evolution of our social 
morality. Either the political or commercial 
trickster and corruptionist must cease to respect 
a high code of morals in his private life, or he 
must alter his public habits. He cannot long 
remain one kind of a man in one sphere of his 
activities, and another sort in the rest of his 
life. 

There are not wanting significant signs that 
these changes are already taking place. Some 
are turning toward the right in public as well 
as in private life^ and others are becoming reli- 
giously and domestically what they are in 
politics and business. 

Here, then, is field for noble and needed 
work. The press, the pulpit, and the schools 
may join hands in a campaign of education 
which shall have for its end the unification of 
our moral life, the breaking down of the dual 
standard, the removal of the barrier between 
the sacred and the secular. 

Such a reform would penetrate to the root 
of political evils. It would be vital, not super- 



86 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

ficial. Our only salvation lies that way. All 
other reforms are merely contributary influ- 
ences toward this crying need of our American 
life. 

The existence of perils and evils does not 
prove our modern social life to be inferior to 
that of other times; for every age has had its 
characteristic evils. Ancient wrongs have been 
righted. True culture and refinement have 
been widely promoted. There is larger free- 
dom and opportunity today than ever before. 
Pessimism is only apparently justified. The out- 
look is promising. The recognition of existing 
evils, the very discontent with conditions once 
endured in silence and ignorance, the conscious- 
ness of those higher ideals by which we indict 
wrongdoers, and in the light of which we battle 
for righteousness, are all signs of progress, the 
grounds of faith, "the substance of things 
hoped for " in the days to come. 



CHAPTER VI 
RELIGION AND CHRIST 

Religion is often regarded as only a col- 
lection of doctrines, ceremonies, and rituals; 
just as science is considered as a system of 
knowledge. But we cannot leave personality 
out of account in any of the religions, sciences, 
or arts. Science has been made what it is by 
great thinkers. Scientific knowledge is the 
knowledge possessed by those who have in- 
telligently studied some phase of the universe. 
Politics, literature, and art have been promoted 
chiefly by the masters, the men of creative 
genius and magnificent powers. 

So while religion is the experience of all 
men in its relation to God, the personality of a 
few remarkable men has exercised a profound 
and lasting influence upon the religious life of 
mankind. This is an interesting fact, because it 
furnishes another illustration of the naturalness 
of religion. It shows that religion is a phase 
of human experience, and that its origin and 
growth have been determined by those uni- 
versal laws which have controlled the progress 

87 



88 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

of man in all other spheres of thought and 
activity. 

When regarded from this point of view, the 
life of Jesus Christ is seen in its true relation- 
ship to the religioMS life of the world. Prin- 
cipal A. M. Fairbairn, in The Philosophy of 
the Christian Religion, states this fact with 
great force thus : 

If then rnan, by his moral being, touches the skirts 
of God, and God in enforcing his law is ever, by means 
of great persons, shaping the life of man to its divine 
issues, what could be more consonant, alike with man's 
nature and God's method of forming or re-forming it, 
than that he should send a supreme Personality as the 
vehicle of highest good to the race? 

Remembering that the life of God is in the 
life or soul of man^ and that religion exists 
because man, by the constitution of his being, 
holds relationships with God, and is ever striv- 
ing to become more and more conscious of 
God, it is very evident that there is a divine 
and a human side to religion. That is to say, 
God reveals, unfolds, manifests himself; man 
discovers and accepts the truth thus inherent in 
nature and in his soul, and enters into fellow- 
ship with the Divine Being. 

Christ is, therefore, on the divine side an 
expression of God, who is seeking to enlighten 



RELIGION AND CHRIST 89 

man and to bring his nature into harmony with 
his own. God speaks to the race through 
Christ. He shows man what he is, what his 
feelings toward man are, what his divine ideal 
of human nature is, so that man may have some 
clearly defined conception of what the moral 
ideal is like, because the ultimate moral ideal 
is God. Glimpses of this ideal man has always 
had : God, revealing himself in nature, per- 
sonal experience, and history has taught him 
much about it. But its clearest visible form is 
in the character of Christ, attracting all lofty 
aspirations toward itself, and awakening within 
us an ardent desire to realize this ideal in our- 
selves. That is the divine side — God seeking 
man, revealing himself. 

On the human side man seeks God. Christ, 
as a gloriously endowed human soul, struggles 
with temptation, fights sin in all its subtle 
forms. As a child he obeys his parents; as a 
man he earns his living by hard, honest work. 
He grows in grace and in wisdom amid trials 
and temptations. He hungers and thirsts after 
true righteousness. He is intensely human. He 
weeps and prays. He mourns for the dead 
and grieves for faithless friends. He pities the 
multitude enslaved by tradition and groping 



90 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

blindly after God. Hypocrisy and cant stir his 
soul into indignant protests. He breaks loose 
from the traditions of centuries, and marks out 
for himself and the world a new path to truth. 
He searches for principles lying back of forms 
and customs. He loves men with unequaled 
devotion — all men, good and bad. He is sin- 
cere to the core of his being. He speaks simply 
and naturally, without cant or hesitation. In 
short, he is a brave, pure, true, loving man — 
the ideal religious man. The man who knows 
God, loves God and obeys God. 

Christ's relationship to religion in general 
is, then, that he is, on one hand, the most 
beautiful expression of the life of God in the 
soul of man, and, on the other, the noblest ex- 
ample of what a truly religious man ought to 
be. So he shows us in himself what the divine 
nature is like, and what man is at his best. 

Now let us see how this view of Jesus Christ 
fits the religious needs of human nature, and 
then how the life and teaching of Jesus are 
adapted to the advanced experience of modern 
times. 

Professor William James has said: 

We become conscious of what we ourselves are by 
imitating others; the consciousness of what others are 
precedes ; the sense of self grows by the sense of pat- 



RELIGION AND CHRIST 9I 

tern Imitation shades imperceptibly into emula- 
tion Emulation is the very nerve of human 

society. 

How beautifully does the mission of Jesus 
Christ exemplify this law of life as laid down 
by a modern thinker! Christ came that men 
might have a true consciousness of themselves 
and of the God whose life dwells in them. To 
be like Christ should be the goal of every per- 
son. We become conscious of ourselves, we 
awake to a sense of what we really are, by 
emulating Christ. We do this by first becom- 
ing conscious of what he is. Then we try to 
think his thoughts, tO' have his feelings, and to 
will to do what he willed to do. This process 
is really a development of the life of God in our 
souls. It is carrying upward and onward what 
good there is in us. No new faculty is added 
to our personality. Christ had what we have 
— mind, affections, will. But all these were 
brought into harmony with the mind, heart, 
and will of God, This is the religious need of 
all men. In every age and clime men have 
been stumbling and groping, more or less con- 
sciously, toward that goal. Christ reached the 
summit ; and we mark the way he climbed, and 
follow in his footsteps. That is Christianity. 
To be something other than a Christian is to 



92 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

wander around in the wilderness following 
other guides ; or to lie down in despair and let 
come what will; or to turn the other way and 
plunge headlong into the depths, without any 
care as to what becomes of us. 

Would we realize high ideals, find our- 
selves, think and love and act as becomes the 
children of God, would we find rest for our 
souls in sweet fellowship with the Eternal Life 
of the universe, let us emulate Christ. This 
emulation is our salvation. This emulation is 
the very nerve of society — the hope of the 
world. 

Secondly, we were to inquire how the life 
and teaching of Jesus are adapted to modern 
conditions. Every step forward in human ex- 
perience is accompanied by changes in religion. 
Religion develops like every other part of 
human experience. The essence or funda- 
mental elements of religion may remain in all 
forms of the religious life, but the expressions 
of religion change, because human experience 
is constantly broadening. New ideas enter 
into the religious life and alter that life. 

What will happen in the future is a purely 
speculative question that need not concern us. 
Is Christ our true guide now ? This is a prac- 



RELIGION AND CHRIST 93 

tical and vital issue. Many important changes 
have taken place in the theological views of 
Christ and the Bible and Christian doctrines. 
We are now in the midst of what is called a 
"reconstruction of theology/' Is it possible 
that these changes indicate an abandonment of 
Jesus Christ as our religious guide; our hope 
and salvation? 

Let us, therefore, consider some features of 
modern life and thought in their bearing upon 
a few of the essential elements in the character 
and teaching of Jesus Christ. 

First, this is a scientific age. Men are in 
search of reality. Knowledge is prized as 
never before — exact knowledge, systematized 
knowledge, that conforms to the facts of the 
universe. No subject is thought too sacred to 
be explored. The Bible has been thrown into 
the crucible of investigation and fearlessly 
criticised. Tradition is no longer respected. 
Every declaration and experience of the past 
which history records is subjected to the most 
rigorous scrutiny. The terrors of hell and the 
threats of the priesthood are losing their power 
to exact an unwilling conformity to established 
precedents. Freedom from bondage to error 
and to superstition is the eagerly pursued goal. 



94 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

The spirit of Jesus was in perfect harmony 
with this spirit of our times. He defined eter- 
nal life to be the knowledge of God and of 
himself. Thus he threw open the doors of the 
universe to the seeker after reality. We are 
encouraged to seek God and to know him. " Ye 
shall know the truth and the truth shall make 
you free." Here we have the secret of all true 
freedom boldly laid down. No scientist could 
say more. Christ was a fearless thinker. 
Whether the scientist agrees with all of Christ's 
conclusions or not, he must admit that Jesus 
was no slave to tra-ditions. He broke through 
the crust of tradition, the teachings of men, in 
search of universal principles. He had no fear 
of church or state. He taught not as the 
scribes. His whole life is a noble exhibition of 
the truly scientific spirit, although the facts 
with which he dealt were not, for the most 
part, those of physical, but of spiritual, nature. 
He perished as a martyr for free speech and 
untrammeled inquiry. 

This is an individualistic age. Socialism, 
in all its forms, is advocated because it is 
thought to be in the interests of a larger life for 
the individual. Rights and liberties are 
claimed for the individual, and are no longer 



RELIGION AND CHRIST 95 

regarded as the peculiar possession of privi- 
leged classes. Civilization is estimated by what 
it does for man. Philanthropic societies, mis- 
sionary enterprises, laws, and institutions are 
justified or condemned on the ground of their 
value in broadening the scope of man's life. 
Momentous changes are being wrought in the 
industrial world by lofty conceptions of the 
worth of the individual. 

No religious teacher equals Jesus in the 
estimate he placed on the value of the indi- 
vidual, and in the power to impress these ideas 
upon the world. He came, not to extinguish 
individual desire, the goal of Buddhism, but to 
increase desire, to enrich and to exalt the indi- 
vidual life. "What shall a man give in ex- 
change for himself?" he exclaimed. "What 
shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world 
and lose himself?" "A man's life consisteth 
not in the abundance of the things which he 
possesseth." Such was Christ's idea of the 
worth of personality and of the relation be- 
tween things — external possessions — and the 
soul. Christ's estimate of the individual is one 
of the great evolutionary forces of our time. 
It will help to save society. The shepherd 
leaves the ninety and nine to seek one lost 



g6 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

sheep. He came to seek the lost, the friendless, 
and the helpless. They were to him the chil- 
dren of the Heavenly Father, irrespective of 
their character, possessions, or social standing. 

But this is also a socialistic age — a term 
with many meanings. Let it stand here for the 
consciousness that we are members one of an- 
other ; that the individual only truly lives when 
he lives in society; that brotherhood is to be 
expressed in every relationship of life, be it 
political, industrial, or religious. The word 
"social" is on everybody's tongue. Social 
topics are the popular themes of scientific 
treatises, poems, novels, essays. Enthusiasm 
for humanity is the master-passion of the age. 
Social service or work for society, the duty of 
man to man, the practical expression of love 
for one's neighbor, is the widely inculcated 
doctrine of reformers, preachers, artists, liter- 
ary men, and statesmen. 

Has Jesus a message for a time like ours? 
Why, he is the great exponent of this master- 
passion. His teachings and his life constitute 
the very essence of the inspiration for social 
service. Religion to him is love to God and to 
man. We cannot love God without loving 
man. If we love and serve our fellow-men, we 



RELIGION AND CHRIST 97 

shall then truly love and serve God, whether 
we really know it or not. In a parable on the 
last judgment he represents those who had fed 
the hungry and clothed the naked, on whom he 
was to bestow blessings, as saying : " Lord, 
when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? 
or athirst, and gave thee drink?" ''And the 
King made answer and said unto them, Verily 
I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it unto one 
of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it 
unto me." 

Christ's fundamental principle of life for 
himself and for all men is '' not to be ministered 
unto but to minister." The sin of the rich man 
in the parable of Dives and Lazarus was not 
that he was rich or licentious or a drunkard, 
but that he was selfish and neglected the sick 
and needy at his door. The law of social ser- 
vice is a cardinal doctrine in Christ's religion. 
The love of God is to find its truest and noblest 
expression, not in prayers and psalms and cere- 
monies, but in self-denying labors for others. 
Self-realization, the watchword of modern edu- 
cation and modern ethics, means to live for 
others. "He that loseth his life for my sake 
shall find it." 

We hear much today about ethical relation- 



98 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

ships, by which is meant that the bonds which 
bind men are not merely poHtical and indus- 
trial, but ethical, spiritual. The employer is 
more than employer to his workmen; he is a 
brother. All men are brothers. Society is 
made up of individuals who should live for 
their brothers. '' Each for all and all for 
each" should be the fundamental principle of 
social life. Where will one find these truths 
more clearly taught than in the words of Jesus ? 
To establish the kingdom of God upon the 
earth was his mission — a kingdom ; not a col- 
lection of individuals, but an organized society. 
Primarily the message of Jesus was to the indi- 
vidual, and any attempt to reform society or to 
promote human welfare that ignores the indi- 
vidual will fail. But its message was to the 
individual in his social relations, as a member 
of the great family of God. How else can men 
come to regard one another as brothers, unless 
they see the divine image in the individual, and 
become conscious of the underlying unity of 
humanity in the light of Christ's teachings? 

It is therefore in the redemption of the 
individual, in all his relations with his fellow- 
men, that Jesus based his hopes for mankind. 
No note of his teaching is out of harmony with 



RELIGION AND CHRIST 99 

the highest aspirations of this age of hberty, 
fraternity, and equahty. No one shares in his 
authority. His spiritual leadership is not 
threatened in the least by the progress of 
knowledge and the evolution of society. Every 
step forward brings us nearer to his thought, 
and every development of consciousness reveals 
in a stronger, clearer light the power of his 
life over humanity. As Francis G. Peabody 
says : 

Among the conflicting activities of the present time 
his power is not that of one more activity among the 
rest, but that of wisdom, personality, ideaHsm. Into the 
midst of the discordant efforts of men he comes as one 
having authority; the self-assertion of each instrument 
of social service is hushed as he gives his sign; and in 
the surrender of each life to him it finds its place in the 
symphony of all. 

The last characteristic feature of modern 
times to be considered fittingly follows those 
mentioned. This is what is called a practical 
age. The long-standing quarrel between the 
practical and the ideal is settled by joining the 
two together in what is called ** practical ideal- 
ism." Whatever we think or do, we must be 
practical, it is said. So, since we must have 
theories and ideals, let them be practical. This 
is simply one of the phases of the passion for 



lOO PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

reality. Men are tired of theories that cannot 
be tested except in the realm of speculation. 
They want no ideals that cannot be pursued 
with some hope of reaching them, or at least of 
making progress toward them. To logical 
demonstration must be added the proof of ex- 
perience. The real test of truth is life. All 
this has profoundly affected theology, and the 
changes it has wrought in the views of religion 
have greatly alanned many good people. It 
has resulted in a new classification of doctrines 
into those which can be tested in any age by 
anybody, and those which can be tested only by 
philosophy or historical criticism. Those doc- 
trines are regarded as the most essential which 
can be verified in human experience. The rest 
may or may not be true; but, in any case, we 
can never be quite so sure of them as we can of 
those which deal most vitally with character 
and conduct. It would carry us too far afield 
to enter into this subject in detail. The fact 
itself is all that is important for our purposes. 
Does Christ meet the issue? Will he consent 
to have his teaching tested by life? Does he 
give us a series of abstract theories and specu- 
lative propositions which we must accept, with- 
out any other evidence than his word; or can 



RELIGION AND CHRIST lOI 

we verify his teaching for ourselves in our 
daily experience? Does he give us speculation 
or experience? 

Now, undoubtedly Christ said many things 
hard to understand. His person and place in 
history, and his relationship to God and to 
man, give rise to many problems of great sig- 
nificance, and difficult of solution. But the vital 
question which concerns every man, educated 
or uneducated, is this : Can those elements of 
Christ's life and teaching which are really 
essential to human welfare be tested in prac- 
tical experience? 

Christ meets that issue with a confidence 
inspiring confidence, with transparent sincerity 
and admirable frankness. He, at least, is not 
afraid to have his commands implicitly obeyed, 
whatever fears his disciples may entertain. He 
says : " My teaching is not mine, but His that 
sent me. If any man willeth to do His will, he 
shall know of the teaching, whether it be of 
God, or whether I speak from myself." This 
saying grips the whole man — mind, heart, and 
will. Surrender self to Christ. Obey him, and 
we shall find ourselves in harmony with God. 
Many a theological doctrine has been a hin- 
drance instead of an aid to the religious life. It 



I02 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

has allured men in search of peace and truth 
into speculative realms, and obscured the living 
Christ who can and will become our spiritual 
friend and guide. Emulate Christ, and you 
will be convinced that his way to live is the 
only true way. *'If we can be our complete 
selves without him," says Professor Coe, "no 
conceivable chain of logical reasoning can ever 
bind his authority upon us." The Christ of 
personal experience is the all-sufficient author- 
ity, the test of Christian truth, and the founda- 
tion of the Christian life. 

To emulate Christ means more than to 
imitate his deeds. It is not in the mere per- 
formance of acts similar to those of Christ 
that one finds peace and gains power over self. 
Nor is the end reached merely by believing that 
what Christ said is true. His words and deeds 
were but the expression of his inner life, his 
attitude toward God. It is that life we need, 
" that life whereof our nerves are scant." True 
faith is the appropriation of Christ's spirit so 
that within each soul the inner life of Jesus 
Christ is reproduced. The whole personality 
enters into fellowship wnth the spirit of Jesus. 
In the consciousness of what he is we become 
conscious of our real selves, and of the rela- 



RELIGION AND CHRIST IO3 

tions between ourselves, God, and other selves. 
Thus we share in the calmness, the peace, the 
joy, the love of Christ. We have his conscious- 
ness of the Divine Presence. It is our delight 
to do the Father's will. We have Christ's con- 
sciousness of our brother's nature, and, like 
Christ, we live to promote his welfare. The 
walls between the sacred and the secular are 
broken down. Religion becomes a thing of 
everyday life. In every duty of life we dis- 
cover a new meaning and a rich significance. 
Daily toil becomes sacred. The workbench 
becomes the altar. Love for Christ is ex- 
pressed in honest work, uplifting art, clean 
politics, and ennobling literature. Day by day, 
in all the affairs of practical life, we test the 
life and the teachings of the Master, and in no 
other way. 

" Poor sad humanity 
Through all the dust and heat 
Turns back with bleeding feet 
By the weary round it came, 
Upon the simple thought, 
By the great Master taught, 
And that remaineth still, 
Not he that repeateth the name, 
But he that doeth the will." 

This view of the relation between religion 



104 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

and Christ will assist the general reader to 
understand the nature of final authority in 
religion. Since people are coming more and 
more to refuse to believe anything without 
evidence there is naturally a widespread inter- 
est in the subject of authority. Blind faith in 
the teachings of the church or of the Bible is 
felt to be unworthy of intelligent people. The 
simple declaration of others does not satisfy 
many honest inquiring minds. They want to 
prove things for themselves. The conviction 
grows that the real authority in religion is the 
authority of personal obedience to Jesus Christ, 
through which truth is revealed. As Auguste 
Sabatier declares : 

In the last analysis, and to go down to the very root 
of the Christian religion, to be a Christian is not to 
acquire a notion of God, or even an abstract doctrine of 
his paternal love; it is to live over, within ourselves, 
the inner spiritual life of Christ, and by the union of 
our heart with his to feel in ourselves the presence of a 
Father and the reality of our filial relation to him, just 
as Christ felt in himself the Father's presence and his 
filial relation to him. 

This is not equivalent to saying that the reli- 
gious experience recorded in the Bible and 
expressed in the church is in no sense an au- 
thority for us; but it shows us that we never 



RELIGION AND CHRIST IO5 

can stand on solid ground until we have experi- 
enced personally the reality of fellowship with 
God. Life itself is our greatest teacher. 

The interior of a beautiful cathedral may 
be described to us. We may believe the testi- 
mony of others respecting its architectural 
glories. But what knowledge acquired by ver- 
bal reports can equal the knowledge born of a 
visit to the cathedral itself? Standing within 
its walls, we see for ourselves, and feel what 
we never otherwise could feel, no matter how 
much faith we placed in the authoritative state- 
ments made by others. 

No man ever has reached, or ever can reach, 
satisfactory conclusions respecting Christ by 
purely intellectual processes. It is waste of 
time to discuss Christ unless w^e are willing to 
seek knowledge of him in the only w^ay by 
which it can finally be obtained — the personal 
effort to realize the Christ ideal. 

" We must enter into life," says Henry Van 
Dyke, *'by giving ourselves to the personal 
Christ who unveils the love of the Father in a 
Human Life, and calls us with Divine authority 
to submit our Liberty to God's sovereignty in 
blessed immortal service to our fellow-men for 
Christ's sake." 



1 66 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

This is the real message of Christianity to 
mankind. The universal religious life reaches 
its supreme expression in human lives trans- 
figured by this self-surrender to Christ. The 
Bible, the Christian church, and all the forms 
and ceremonies of the Christian religion are 
simply means to an end and that end is — 
Christlikeness. 



CHAPTER VII 
RELIGION AND THE BIBLE 

Confused by conflicting authorities and the 
widespread agitation over the results of modern 
biblical criticism multitudes have lost their 
bearings. This is inevitable and in no wise 
proves that scientific research and free discus- 
sion should be repressed. The Reformation, 
although a great blessing to the world, was 
accompanied by many doubts, heart-aches, and 
commotions. 

Peace of mind, secured by ignorance of 
truth and unreasoning conservatism is by no 
means desirable. The beauty and fruitfulness 
of the earth were produced by centuries of 
agitation. Life and progress are based upon 
struggle and change. There is not the slight- 
est justification for hostility to the fearless 
study of the Bible. Nothing true can be de- 
stroyed by criticism, and what is false should 
be shown to be so. 

But it is not our purpose to enlist in the 
ranks of the biblical combatants and to engage 
the reader in what might prove a fruitless con- 

107 



I08 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

troversy. A calm consideration of the rela- 
tions between religion and the Bible will show 
that there are many things respecting the Bible 
which may be regarded as facts, even if there 
are numerous other disputed propositions. The 
feeling that the whole subject is enshrouded in 
mystery, that criticism has imperiled every- 
thing, that the average man cannot know 
what to believe, although perhaps a natural 
feeling in view of the prevailing agitation, is, 
nevertheless, unwarranted. Many preachers 
have increased the doubts and fears of the 
people by misrepresenting the views of biblical 
scholars, and by teaching their hearers to as- 
sume an absurd and false attitude toward the 
Bible. For instance, one frequently hears it 
said : " If you cannot believe all the Bible 
teaches, you may as well discard it altogether. 
* False in one, false in all.' " The critics are 
depicted with knives in their hands, cutting out 
one passage after another, until nothing but 
the covers of the Bible are left. We heard a 
noted evangelist speak, in substance, as fol- 
lows : " The tired workman takes down the 
old family Bible in the evening to read a chap- 
ter to his wife and children. Perhaps the pas^ 
sage selected is one of the Psalms. The higher 



RELIGION AND THE BIBLE lOQ 

critic enters and cries : ' Stop ! You must not 
read that. We have not decided who wrote 
that psalm/ The humble believer turns to one 
of the prophetical books, and begins to read : 
' Stop ! ' shouts the scholar again, * You must 
not read that; we have not decided when that 
was written.' " It is difficult for those who 
know the facts to characterize such a misrepre- 
sentation of the scholars in terms that will not 
sound harsh. Yet the truth is that such state- 
ments could be inspired only by ignorance or 
insincerity. No biblical scholar forbids or dis- 
courages the reading of any part of the Bible. 
He might disagree from those who believe in 
what are called orthodox or traditional views 
of the Bible as to dates, authorship, and the 
historical or religious significance of portions 
of Scripture ; but he regards every part of the 
Bible as historically important, and as possess- 
ing significance in the religious life of man. 

To pursue this interesting subject further 
would lead us too far astray, however ; for our 
aim is to set forth_, as clearly as possible, a few 
plain facts respecting religion and the Bible, 
which may be of service to troubled minds. 

The Bible is not religion; it is the product 
of religion; a collection of books written in 



no PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

many different centuries, in various stages of 
civilization, and dealing with a great variety 
of religious experiences. In these books are to 
be found history, biography, poems, parables, 
proverbs, dreams and visions, and prophecies. 
They furnish us with a multitude of facts con- 
cerning the thoughts, feelings, and deeds of 
individuals, families, tribes, and nations. 
Taken together, these books may be compared 
to a photograph showing us what manner of 
men they were who lived in ancient Egypt, 
Babylonia, Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece, and 
Rome. Cromwell is reported to have said to 
an artist : *' Paint me as I am, warts and all." 
The Bible faithfully portrays the Hebrews and 
certain other peoples just as they were, "warts 
and all." Good and evil, kindness and cruelty, 
greatness and littleness, failures and successes, 
truth and falsehood, are to be found expressed 
and described in the Bible. Each century had 
its own peculiar views of God and duty, its own 
aspirations and achievements; and these are 
all, more or less adequately, expressed and 
embodied in these books. 

The doctrines of the Bible are the doctrines 
held by men in different ages and countries. 
The religion of the Bible is the religion of 



RELIGION AND THE BIBLE III 

people who once lived on the earth; battled 
with temptation; struggled to promote their 
political and social welfare; migrated from 
one country to another ; built cities ; organized 
governments; passed laws; fought battles; 
founded synagogues and Christian churches; 
adopted religious forms and ceremonies; con- 
ducted public worship; preached about every 
subject that interested them, before kings or 
the multitude; and, in short, lived their lives 
and struggled for the truth just exactly as 
other peoples have done before and since that 
time. Is it any wonder, then, that we find 
recorded in the Bible varying conceptions of 
religion, deeds of cruelty, noble examples of 
virtue, and different ideas of God? 

With this conception of the Bible before 
us, it is not difficult to understand that the 
Bible may be studied in a variety of ways and 
for different purposes. For instance, it may be 
studied purely for historical ends. Informa- 
tion may be sought concerning the ancient 
tribes of Israel — their origin, migrations, and 
relations with other nations. The growth of 
the national life may be traced through the era 
of the Judges to the establishment of the mon- 
archy, from the division of the kingdom to the 



112 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

fall of Samaria and of Jerusalem, during the 
period of the captivity to the return and re- 
building of the fallen cities. 

The Bible may be studied biographically, 
taking up one after another the great men of 
Israel — Moses, Solomon, David, Amos, 
Isaiah, Ezekiel, Christ, Paul, Peter, John. 

Or we may study the book for sociological 
purposes. In that case interest would be cen- 
tered upon the social life of the various peoples 
of Bible times; upon the origin of various so- 
cial institutions, social customs, and social 
ideals. 

Philosophers or theologians may investigate 
the biblical literature for the purpose of tracing 
the ideas which were held respecting creation 
and the laws of nature. The ideas of God and 
of man's moral obligations may be collected 
and arranged in a systematic form. 

The Bible may be studied in its legislative 
features for the purpose of obtaining light on 
the civil and ecclesiastical laws of the Hebrews 
and of neighboring nations. The results would 
constitute a part of the history of human laws. 

The literary expert might study the epics, 
lyrics, essays, biographies, stories, and his- 
tories of the Bible in the same spirit in which 



RELIGION AND THE BIBLE II3 

he Studies the literature of Greece and Rome, 
or of the Middle Ages. 

But these historical, philosophical, legal, 
theological, or literary uses of the Bible, while 
they serve the religious life more or less directly 
through a better understanding of the Bible, do 
not constitute the most important use of the 
Bible. Knowledge of the history or theology 
in the biblical literature is one thing, but the 
religious use of the facts and teachings of the 
Bible is a vastly different thing. One might 
study the Bible in all the ways we have men- 
tioned, and yet refuse to profit by the teachings 
of the books. The Bible, in short, is not 
primarily addressed to the head, but to the 
heart and will of man. It is not merely as 
history or biography that the Bible is useful. 
Its chief value consists in its power to lead us 
to forsake our sins, to love mercy, to deal 
justly, and to walk humbly with our God. One 
might be thoroughly informed on the his- 
torical, theological, or literary elements of the 
Bible, and remain indifferent to the God re- 
vealed in the Bible, or even be an open enemy 
of Christianity. We never get the most out of 
the Bible, then, until we use it as a book 
"profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for cor- 



114 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

rection, for instruction in righteousness; that 
the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly 
furnished unto all good works." 

The Bible is a providential gift of God to 
man; and, like all the other gifts of God, it 
may be neglected or abused, and so fail to 
render the service to man of which it is capable. 
There is nothing magical or mysterious about 
its influence over human life. It possesses no 
power for good apart from the intelligent use 
made of it. We may take a false attitude 
toward it. The simple faith that it is God's 
book, without any understanding of what the 
book teaches, is of little account. Its value to 
the soul wholly depends upon the amount of its 
truth which we appropriate and by which we 
live. 

We are nowhere taught in the Bible that 
salvation depends upon believing in the infalli- 
bility of the Bible, or that we shall be punished 
if we do not believe this dogma. The real need 
is not more faith in doctrines about the Bible, 
but more faith in the essential teachings of the 
Bible itself; instead of treating the Bible as a 
fetish, a sort of a charm, we need to under- 
stand its contents and practice its teachings. 

The religious life requires nourishment to 



RELIGION AND THE BIBLE II5 

insure growth. Spiritual development should 
be the aim of everyone. It is sad to reflect 
how^ many people seem to think that because 
they have professed a faith in God and joined 
the church they are safe — sure of an entrance 
into heaven when they die. This narrow view 
of the religious life is widely held; and conse- 
quently the soul is deprived of that culture 
which is the chief end of our existence. We 
were never meant to stand still but to add 
virtue to virtue, to grow '* in grace and in the 
knowledge of Jesus Christ." From the Chris- 
tian point of view, salvation means Christlike- 
ness. The more one becomes like Christ, the 
more saved one becomes. Being a Christian 
is like going to school and learning something 
every day, acquiring the benefits of develop- 
ment, increasing our capacity for usefulness 
and happiness. The idea that nothing more 
can be done for the religious life after we have 
made our peace with God is based upon a 
totally erroneous conception of the nature of 
the Christian life. It is because so many live 
according to this wrong theory that there are 
so many feeble Christians. Their lives indicate 
a lack of spiritual nourishment ; they are weak 
and inefficient; they want vitality, power, 
breadth — in a word, life. 



Il6 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

*' The law of the Lord is perfect, converting 
the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, 
making wise the simple; the statutes of the 
Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the com- 
mandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the 
eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring 
forever; the judgments of the Lord are true 
and righteous altogether." 

These laws, testimonies, statutes, command- 
ments, and judgments of the Lord are to be 
found in the Bible with a simplicity and clear- 
ness unparalleled in nature or in the other 
sacred books of the world. It is our privilege 
to seek them out and to obey them. 

"But," it is asked, "where is there room 
for revelation according to this theory ? Is not 
the Bible the Word of God?" The Bible is 
not revelation, is not the Word of God, in the 
sense that every view of the Divine Being and 
every doctrine of duty in the Bible is the view 
and doctrine of God himself. 

Again, recall the idea of religion as the 
life of God seeking expression in the mind of 
man, or, conversely, the soul of man struggling 
for a larger recognition of the life and truths 
of God. God seeking man and man seeking 
God — these are the two sides of religion. The 



RELIGION AND THE BIBLE 11/ 

Bible records a part of this universal process. 
Its chief claim upon our attention is not that 
God has expressed himself, or man sought 
God, nowhere but in the period covered by the 
biblical literature. Other peoples had their 
religious experiences ; God spoke also in them ; 
and the history of this search for God and this 
divine self-revelation is exceedingly helpful to 
us. We know far too little about it. 

But there is a uniqueness, an unparalleled 
simplicity, breadth, and beauty, in the revela- 
tion of God contained in the Bible. It will not 
be denied that nations as well as individuals 
differ in their native endowments, in their ex- 
periences and achievements, and in their con- 
tributions tO' civilization. The fact that God 
is in all men does not mean that all men are 
equally conscious of the divine wathin them. 
There are countless stages of religious develop- 
ment. To state the matter in one way, God 
has revealed truth to some w^hich he has with- 
held from others. Or, on the other hand, some 
have reached stages of consciousness of God, 
have discovered truths, and enjoyed experi- 
ences far beyond the attainments of others. 
The same is true in politics, art, industry, or 
education. The reason why the Bible is with- 



Il8 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

out an equal as a guide to man in religion is 
that truth was revealed to the Hebrews, and 
especially in Jesus Christ, which was unre- 
vealed to, or undiscovered by, any other people 
in history. This does not mean that other 
nations did not possess any of this truth, nor 
display in their lives any of the virtues which 
distinguished Bible characters. But, taken as 
a whole, the history contained in the Bible is 
unequaled in the lessons and inspirations it 
furnishes the human race. No other nation 
had such a genius for religion. No other 
nation has left us a record which, from the 
beginning to the end, so clearly shows us the 
hand of God in history and enables us to trace 
the development of the spiritual life of a people 
under divine guidance. '* The Book is, 
throughout, a revelation intended to bring light 
out of darkness, to make crooked ways 
straight, and, across hills and valleys, to make 
highways for the weakest to pass along." It 
is the greatness of the history itself which the 
Bible records that gives the Bible its value. 
God nowhere else has spoken to man in such 
comprehensible, familiar language. 

It is, then, as a Book of life, capable of 
arousing the soul to a sense of its needs and of 



RELIGION AND THE BIBLE II9 

pointing the way to life, that the Bible is un- 
excelled as a religious guide. 

But how is one to discriminate between the 
good and the bad characters described in the 
Bible, and how is one to know which of the 
many views of God and of human obligation 
are true ? So many ideas about the Bible have 
had to be given up that one never knows what 
to believe about it. These are questions that 
trouble many minds. 

Now, in the first place, much that has been 
discarded is really the invention of men. Views 
have been held which have been supposed to be 
contained in the Bible, but which are not to be 
found there. We must distinguish between 
what the Bible says for itself and what men 
say about it. Great progress has been made 
toward a clearer and truer understanding of 
the Bible by simply giving up ideas about the 
book which we have inherited, but which a 
fearless and honest inquiry cannot find in the 
Bible itself. 

When this is accomplished, there will still 
remain the necessity for discrimination be- 
tween the true and the false, the good and the 
bad, in the Bible. There are, as we have seen, 
a great variety of views in the Bible, and all 



120 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

sorts of men and women. To distinguish the 
difference between these ideas and characters is 
not so difficult as it theoretically appears. Of 
course, it requires study and intelligence to 
become an expert Bible student. Is this 
strange? Can one master any great subject 
without study? But experience demonstrates 
that people do not make such very serious 
blunders, after all. Nobody thinks that Jonah 
was as fine a character as Amos or Isaiah, or 
that Samson was as wise as Solomon, or that 
Saul was as fine a specimen of manhood as 
David. Even the untrained reader notes differ- 
ences between Peter and Paul. Everybody 
concedes that Christ excels all the biblical char- 
acters in wisdom and goodness. We do make 
distinctions, and we do judge the biblical men 
and women by certain standards. They are not 
all equally attractive to us. Everyone has 
favorite passages of Scripture. No one enjoys 
a genealogical chapter as he does the Sermon 
on the Mount. We all see the ethical differ- 
ences between the laws of Moses and the pre- 
cepts of Christ. As a matter of fact, the great 
mass of people who read the Bible find in it 
comfort, instruction, and inspiration, without 
settling various questions in historical criticism 
or in biblical theology. 



RELIGION AND THE BIBLE 121 

There is no infallible rule, then, by which 
one can solve all the questions arising from the 
Bible. The important thing to remember is 
that it can help us in spite of difficulties, just 
as we enjoy sunshine and utilize heat without 
a knowledge of science. The more we know 
about the Bible the better. Criticism and re- 
search help to render its teachings clearer. But 
the real difficulty with most of us is not that we 
cannot find anything in the Bible to meet our 
moral needs. The difficulty is that we do not 
practice those things that are clearly taught; 
that we pass by the plain commands of Christ 
in search of difficulties, and get entangled in 
questions that do not pertain to our practical 
life. If we will, we can lay hold on these 
simple verities and find peace. 

The seeker after God and personal right- 
eousness finds in the Bible a record of the 
thoughts, feelings, and conduct of men who 
grappled with essentially the same problems as 
those which confront all men today. He sees 
the inner life of religious men laid bare. He 
marks the effects of love and hate, righteous 
zeal and ignoble ambition, true faith and 
cowardly unbelief. He finds encouragement 
and inspiration in notable examples of fidelity 



122 PRIMARY FACTS IN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

to duty, and is warned by the miserable failures 
of those who forsook God to pursue their own 
foolish ends. He learns the secret of true peace 
and moral strength. His weary soul finds rest 
in the contemplation of truths that reveal the 
glory of God in human experience. When the 
tragic story nears its end, "in the fulness of 
time," there is disclosed the incomparable per- 
son of Jesus Christ, who unites in himself the 
loftiest precepts and holiest living, "beautiful 
as the light, sublime as heaven, and as true as 
God." It is the Christ who opens our eyes to 
eternal truths and existing realities, and as we 
become acquainted with him, by the aid of the 
gospel narratives, a new hope is born in the 
soul, a longing to realize the beautiful ideal 
portrayed in the pages of the entrancing story. 



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